


Looking at the Moon

by indirectkissesiniceland



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Ada-Elliot-Leo power trio, F/M, Gen, M/M, ships are basically just implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 29,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3187919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indirectkissesiniceland/pseuds/indirectkissesiniceland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Completed for the Pandora Hearts Big Bang challenge! Ada loves jazz , and there's no club in town hotter than Nightray's. When Oz finds out that a talent agent will be attending Amateur Night, he knows it's his sister's chance to shine. Of course, getting on stage will require a loyal (if nervous) friend to sneak her into the club and a couple of teenage pianists to help her practice, but if all goes well, Ada just might win over one Vincent Nightray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ada Vessalius had never been in love, but jazz gave her a pretty good idea of what it felt like

 

“Someday my happy arms will hold you,” she would sing, serenading Uncle Oscar’s ancient record player in the attic and humming over the needle scratches that hitched Ella’s backup band. “And someday I’ll know that moment divine when all the things you are, are mine.”

 

When Ada was little, before Uncle Oscar’s first gallery made the papers, she remembered visiting him at his little house with her brother. The record player had always been old, but somehow less so back then. A kitchen chair served as a makeshift step-stool, and Uncle Oscar would help Ada up onto it so she could ceremoniously place the needle on the outermost groove of whatever record Oz had handed her from the cabinet.

 

Uncle Oscar loved to sing jazz, his low voice rolling comfortably against those in the recordings. With a hand over his heart, he’d suck in deep breaths and rumble out his favorite songs for his captive audience.  Oz was always picking Louis Armstrong albums—Uncle Oscar did a mean Louis Armstrong—but if Ada got to pick, it was “I’ll Be Seeing You” by Billie Holiday. In his zeal to capture Billie’s flirtatious croon, Uncle Oscar always put too much emphasis on “fa” and half-smiled “mil” on his way to “iar places.” To this day Ada couldn’t sing the line any other way.

 

It didn’t seem like that long ago, and yet it had been nearly a decade since those days. Once his reputation as a photographer skyrocketed, Uncle Oscar moved out of the little house into a bigger one far away, leaving his record player and album collection to his niece and nephew. For a few years, Ada and Oz would sit together in the parlor to listen, but it wasn’t the same without a boisterous voice to go with it. When the gaps between time spent listening to records became wider, their father had the record player moved up to the attic where it wouldn’t take up space.

 

When Oz moved away to college, the walls of the Vessalius house echoed with his absence.

 

Ada realized that her voice bounced off the walls and high ceilings when she spoke, and even more so when she sang. She’d heard Uncle Oscar sing a thousand times, so it wasn’t hard to remember all of his tips and tricks. Pause on the inhale, sing on the exhale. Pull the music from your stomach, not your throat. Don’t rush through a single syllable. Keep your voice low—jazz was deep and soulful, not high and warbling.

 

“Music nowadays is lightning, loud and bright stuff that strikes but doesn’t last,” Uncle Oscar would always say, gesturing grandly with his hands. “Jazz is like the thunder rolling in the distance—a quiet storm, powerful, echoing in our minds long after it’s over.”

 

Uncle Oscar always had a flair for the dramatic. It must have been hereditary, though. When everyone else was asleep, Ada would sneak up to the attic, lie on the floor beside the record player with her eyes closed and her fingers laced over her abdomen, and imagine herself as thunder.

 

Nothing made a girl more nostalgic for her childhood than legal adulthood. Today was Ada’s eighteenth birthday. On one hand, she lamented never experiencing the exciting romance that novels and films had promised were only worth having at sixteen or seventeen. On the other, she couldn’t help it if she’d never met someone who sparked a fire in her heart. Besides, she had other things to be happy about. Uncle Oscar and Oz were both coming home this afternoon for her birthday party. She hoped that it wouldn’t be another of their whirlwind visits and that the three of them would have a chance to listen to records together.

 

 _I’m too young to be thinking ‘for old times’ sake,_ Ada thought, frowning at her reflection in the parlor mirror as she combed her hair back with her fingers. Her father was off to pick up Oz at the train station. The hired catering and wait staff were all racing around putting the finishing touches on the extravagant party her father had insisted on. It was another few hours until any guests arrived, but Ada was already dressed in her party gown. One look in the mirror, and she could see that the makeup the woman at the beauty salon had applied was much too heavy. Ada glanced around the parlor for a tissue to wipe some of the blush and lipstick away.

 

“I’ll be seeing you,” she sang to herself, making her way around the tables and lamps in search of the tissue box. “In all the old fa-mil-iar places.” Ada giggled, thinking of Uncle Oscar.

 

At last she found the tissues, shoved away into a cabinet. With one clenched in her hand, she turned back towards the mirror. There in the parlor doorway, a jacket folded over his arm, stood Uncle Oscar. He was beaming.

 

“My goodness,” he said. “I came here for my niece’s birthday and seem to have stumbled upon a jazz star.”

 

It had been well over a year since she’d last seen him. Ada picked up the skirt of her dress so she could run into her uncle’s outstretched arms, his beard scratchy against her cheek just as she remembered. He rocked her back and forth in a bear hug, even lifting her off her feet.

 

“Now then, let me get a good look at you.” Uncle Oscar set her back down on her feet and planted his hands on her shoulders, leaning back and pretending to study her over the rims of his glasses. “You get taller every time I see you. And more—”

 

“Don’t say ‘beautiful,’” Ada said, holding up her hand. “Not until I wipe off about sixty percent of this makeup.”

 

Uncle Oscar laughed. “All the makeup in the world won’t hide that lovely face, my dear. Your father must be a wreck.”

 

Ada rolled her eyes, but it was hard to be annoyed with her uncle. She helped him carry his things up to the guest room, then ducked into the adjoining bathroom to wipe off her makeup in the mirror. When she looked suitably unpainted, she came back out to see Uncle Oscar hanging up clothes in the closet. A warm glow filled her chest; the last time he’d stayed, he’d only brought the clothes on his back, but it looked like he had enough for a week or more this time.

 

“How long are you staying?” she asked, resisting the urge to flop on his bed the way she had when she was a child, instead perching on the edge and smoothing her gown with her hands.

 

“Oh, longer than last time. Until Xai kicks me out, probably.” Uncle Oscar let out a rippling belly laugh.

 

Downstairs, the telltale bang of the door being thrown open and a loud “Guess who’s ho-o-ome?” announced her brother’s arrival. Ada jumped to her feet and raced to the door, her uncle still chuckling behind her.

 

Oz grinned up at her as she all but took the stairs two at a time in her rush down to the foyer where he stood. Her brother wasn’t much taller than she was and couldn’t swing her around the way Uncle Oscar could, but his hug still felt extra warm. “It’s good to see you, Ada!”

 

She pulled back when she heard Uncle Oscar coming down the stairs. He greeted his twentysomething nephew the same way he did Ada, crushing him in a bear hug and picking him up with the sheer force of it. Ada glanced around. “Where is Father?”

 

“How would I know?” Oz asked blankly, his feet back on the floor.

 

“He picked you up?” Ada prompted.

 

“No-o-o, Gil drove me.”

 

As if on cue, a dark-haired young man stepped inside carrying a large suitcase. He looked up, saw that the three Vessaliuses had their attention fixed on him, and seemed to shrink away. “Hello,” he said.

 

Ada wanted to reprimand her brother—she could imagine her father’s temper rising with every passing minute Oz didn’t appear on the train platform—but she knew by the goofy smile on his face that he wasn’t going to do anything to alleviate his friend’s obvious anxiety.

 

“The famous Gil!” she said instead, pushing past Oz and extending her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you from my brother. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

 

Ada knew that Gil had been her brother’s roommate his freshman year of college and that they’d hit it off so well they’d lived together since, even now that they’d graduated. Her brother’s letters and calls often included stories of his friend, but Ada had never met him face-to-face.

 

Gil seemed to relax when Ada approached, but when he took her hand he tilted it sidewise so that the back of her hand was facing up, then seemed to change his mind and turned it back for a handshake. Ada giggled.

 

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Ada. Oz has told me all about you. Well,” Gil paused and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “he brags about you a lot.”

 

“Does he?” Ada asked loudly, putting her hands on her hips and throwing her brother a smirk over her shoulder. He shook his head at Gil.

 

“Jeez, Gil, you’ve been here, what, a minute? Already throwing me under the bus…”

 

The genuine distress that crossed Gil’s face almost made Ada laugh, though she stifled it. Behind her, Oz and Uncle Oscar showed no such restraint. How odd, Ada thought when she shot them a warning look; she’d never realized how alike their laughs were.

 

Once he’d composed himself, Uncle Oscar stepped forward to introduce himself, but Gil already seemed to know to whom he was speaking. “Oz has pictures,” he stammered out as an explanation.

 

Uncle Oscar nodded. “And you’re Gil…?”

 

“Ah, sorry, sorry.” Gil looked about ready to break out into a sweat, and Ada wondered how he had survived living with her brother all these years; nobody teased and tortured like Oz. Gil stuck out his hand, which Uncle Oscar took hold of to pull him into a bear hug, too. “I’m Gilbert Nightray,” he squeaked, his feet lifting off the floor in Uncle Oscar’s embrace.

 

“Nightray!” Uncle Oscar put him back down on the floor. Gil wrung his hands. “As in…Nightray’s?”

 

“Oh! Yes. Yes, my…father owns it.”

 

Ada’s heart pounded in her chest. She knew Nightray’s by reputation only, and much of that was gleaned from her uncle, but she’d never suspected her brother’s roommate was connected to it. The hottest jazz club in the city—everybody who was anybody performed there. The club had been around longer than Ada had been alive, she was pretty sure; some of her earliest memories were of Uncle Oscar telling her how he’d seen so-and-so or such-and-such play at Nightray’s.

 

Oz barged in between his uncle and Gil. “Jeez, you guys, let him get in the door, wouldja?” Beckoning to Gil, he said, “Come on, I’ll show you the guest room.” Gil picked up his suitcase and followed Oz towards the stairs.

 

“Are you staying here, too?” Uncle Oscar asked.

 

“Just for tonight, if it’s all right. It’s a long drive home.”

 

“Did my brother make you drive all the way down here just to make you turn around?” Ada asked, horrified.

 

“Oh, no, nothing like that! I offered to drive him.” Gil clutched his suitcase a bit tighter. “He wasn’t looking forward to driving with your fa—”

 

“Gil!” Oz yelled from the stairs. Gil broke off mid-sentence and followed after him. Oz’s relationship with their father had never been a particularly good one, so Ada shouldn’t have been surprised that Oz didn’t want to be trapped in the car with him, even for a short drive. Not that it excused his last-minute change of travel plans.

 

“Uncle Oscar is in the guest room,” Ada called up after her brother. He and Gil disappeared around the bannister.

 

“I’ll show you to my room,” Ada heard Oz say to Gil without missing a beat.

 

A thump followed, and she pictured Gil scrambling to pick up his dropped suitcase. “I don’t want to impose—”

 

“You’re not. You can sleep on the floor.”

 

“Oz!” Ada and Uncle Oscar both yelled up the stairs after him.

 

“What?” Oz yelled back. Ada could just hear Gil’s muffled protests disappearing down the hall towards Oz’s room.

 

Uncle Oscar sighed a smile. “Well, I certainly don’t mind staying at a hotel for the night. It’s nice to see Oz making friends with someone his own age.”

 

“Twenty-five?” Ada asked shrewdly. Uncle Oscar grunted, clutching at his chest.

 

“ _Twenty-five!_ Oz is twenty-five. You kids are making me feel old.”


	2. Chapter 2

Gil had expected Oz’s room at home to look much the same as his room in their apartment: messy, warm, books stacked everywhere. Considering that Oz hadn’t lived here in six or seven years, Gil wasn’t sure then why he was so surprised to find that it was the complete opposite. It looked less lived-in than the guest room they’d passed down the hall, and in place of the clutter Gil had affectionately come to associate with his roommate, there was just a bed and a dresser aligned around the two windows.

 

Spreading his arms, Oz turned on his heel and flopped backwards onto his bed, which barely even creaked under his weight. “Home sweet prison.”

 

Gil set his suitcase down by the door and asked if Oz wanted him to get his suitcase from the trunk, too. Oz grunted his disapproval.

 

“Jeez, Gil, you’re my best friend, not my servant.” Oz didn’t move his shoulders, straining his neck to look up at Gil from where he’d starfished onto the bed. “Relax.”

 

“I _am_ relaxed,” Gil said, shrugging off his coat and draping it over his suitcase. He sat down on the edge of the bed next to Oz.

 

“It was a long drive,” Oz said.

 

“It was a long drive,” Gil agreed.

 

Oz folded his hands over his chest and turned his head towards Gil. “Thanks for doing it.”

 

“Oh, I don’t mind.” Oz had been dreading that drive with his father. Anyone could see it, with his uncharacteristically short responses and pacing around their apartment the last week or two. Gil’s first inklings had come well before then: Oz cradling his phone to his ear and scrunching himself up on a kitchen chair, toes curling around the edge of the seat. A crease forming between his eyebrows as he listened to his sister’s invitation and studied the scratched wooden floor.

 

It was Oz’s job to be carefree and Gil’s job to worry. When Oz was worried, Gil didn’t know how to be the carefree one. Especially when Oz wasn’t forthcoming with what was bothering him. Finally, Gil asked if maybe he could drive him home for his sister’s birthday, omitting any mention of his father.

 

Oz had let out the heaviest sigh Gil had ever heard from him. “That would be great.”

 

Now here Oz was, lying on his childhood bed, eyes closed, breathing measured. “Yeah, well,” he murmured, “I owe you one. Two, even. Maybe.”

 

Gil chuckled. Ada’s and Oscar’s voices floated up from the staircase and disappeared into the room beside theirs. Though he couldn’t make out the words, Gil listened to the bubbles of Ada’s laughter and the steady roll of Oscar’s responses.

 

So far, the Vessalius house seemed like a welcome reprieve from their tiny apartment in the city. He hoped Oz would relax. Ada was thrilled to see him, but Gil knew that in the morning when he tried to excuse himself politely, Oz would say he was going, too. He didn’t want to think about what Ada’s reaction might be when she realized how quickly her brother planned to leave. The look on a younger sibling’s face in that situation was one no older sibling wanted to see.

 

The sounds of the voices next door started to blur together, harmonize, and Gil realized that they were singing. Oz hummed a low sound, his lips curving into a smile though his eyes remained closed.

 

“She gets too hungry for dinner at eight,” he sang, and Gil jumped. Oz didn’t sing a whole lot, and when he did…well, enthusiasm made up for tone-deafness. This soft murmuring of lyrics to match the tune from next door was new. “She likes the theater and never comes late.”

 

Without warning, Oz sprang from the bed and bolted from the room. Gil followed. Out in the hallway, Ada’s and Oscar’s voices were less muffled: “She never bothers with people she hates!” Oscar’s voice seemed lower, as if he were letting Ada take the lead, though the female part wasn’t the lead on that song. She hit the notes perfectly anyway, Gil thought, trying to think of the last time someone at the club covered that track.

 

Oz grabbed either side of the door frame to the guest room and bowed his head and shoulders inside to join the harmony. “That’s why the lady-y-y is a tra-a-amp!”

 

Gil could hear Ada’s shriek of laughter as Oz tumbled into the room. He paused. Maybe he shouldn’t follow Oz around like this, an awkward shadow intruding on what little time he had with his sister. Deciding that was right, Gil inched backwards out of sight, towards Oz’s room again, the buzz of excited Vessalius chatter growing softer with each step.

 

“Say, now that’s an idea!” Oscar boomed suddenly, and Gil’s heart jumped into his throat. There was no doubt in his mind that this was Oz’s relative.

 

He could hear Ada squeaking, “No, no, no, wait—” and the Oz’s grin reappeared from around the doorframe.

 

“Hey, Gil,” he said. Gil held back a groan; he knew that tone. He’d heard “Hey, Gil” a thousand times and it always—well, it didn’t always turn out _bad_ , he supposed, but it always turned out. Oz was a force of nature when he decided he wanted something. No matter how many rules it broke, Gil inevitably gave in, and the arch of Oz’s eyebrows told Gil that this was most definitely the rule-breaking variation of “Hey, Gil.”

 

What would Elliot think?


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m a classical pianist,” Elliot said, dropping onto the piano bench with a huff. “I’m not interested in jazz.”

 

“An unfortunate turn of events for the scion of a jazz club,” Leo observed, hiding his smile by adjusting his glasses.

 

For someone who grew up living over a nightclub, he supposed it wasn’t unrealistic for Elliot to be tired of jazz. Maybe Leo would have believed it more readily if Elliot didn’t mention it every time he sat down to the piano. Or if he’d never sat beside Elliot at the top of the stairs leading from the Nightrays’ home on the upper floors to the club below, listening to the act of the night while Elliot recounted the events of rehearsals earlier that day. Or if he didn’t see the little tremor in Elliot’s fingers against the piano keys with every denial.

 

With a family as big as the Nightrays’, it was unlikely that the club would be Elliot’s inheritance. Maybe, Leo sometimes pondered, that was the reason Elliot complained about jazz the way he did. That or pure stubbornness, which Elliot had in spades.

 

Leo sighed and slid onto the bench beside Elliot as he ran warmup scales. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, adding just a pinch of teasing to his words. He put one hand on the keys, using the other to bat away Elliot’s practicing fingers. “There are a few songs I like.” He hummed, pretending to think for a moment before playing the first few notes of “Well, You Needn’t.” Some performer a week or so ago had come into Nightray’s and done a cover Elliot had liked and tapped his foot along to.

 

Elliot studied Leo’s fingers for a few bars, while Leo hummed out the notes and copied them on the keys. After a moment, Elliot returned his hands to the piano himself.

 

“Yeah, I know that one. It’s a little tougher to get, since Monk’s playing is so…freestyle, I guess.” Elliot skipped ahead in the song and started playing the jumpy section from the middle. Leo let the pads of his fingers rest on the edges of the keys at his end of the piano.

 

For someone so rigid about right and wrong, rules and foolishness, Elliot had no problem imitating a freestyle piece of music. His shoulders rocked in time with the staccato melody, his fingers gliding over and under each other to bounce from one key to the next. It wasn’t to say that Elliot didn’t play classical music well; Leo was sure the original composers would struggle to upstage Elliot’s performances of their works. Jazz just seemed to flow so naturally from him.

 

Elliot hesitated, seeming to realize that he had been visibly enjoying jazz in front of Leo. He retracted his hands. “Like that,” he mumbled, reaching up to rub the back of his neck.

 

“Not even sheet music! I’m impressed,” Leo said obligingly. Elliot was fun to tease, but if he got moody, he was just annoying. The compliment seemed to placate him, and he straightened his posture.

 

“I’ve heard the song plenty of times downstairs my whole life,” Elliot said. His attempt to sound aloof clashed with the modesty of the response, and Leo was glad that his shaggy hair obstructed his face so that he could allow himself a quiet laugh without Elliot seeing. “The baby grand. Everything…sounds amazing on that piano.” Oswald’s piano. Not as fancy as the one Elliot practiced on, but broken-in and comfortable. Leo had seen Elliot stare longingly at it from the stairs on more than one occasion.

 

“Makes sense,” he said, jabbing his elbow into Elliot’s ribs. Squawking, Elliot shifted over on the bench to make room as Leo slid over.

 

“I would have moved, you know. You could _ask_ ,” Elliot snapped. Leo ignored him and put his fingers to the keys.

 

“Like this, huh?” Leo repeated the bars, imitating the loping arcs of Elliot’s hands. His fingers had callouses that wouldn’t befall someone of Elliot’s higher social status, and his nails were a little longer, half-moons that trapped dust and dirt. Rocking his body to the melody didn’t feel natural, and maybe he didn’t give the swinging experience of a jazz pianist, but Leo figured if he matched the notes just right, you couldn’t tell the difference anyway.

 

Elliot watched him with a furrowed brow. “Yeah, just like that,” he said. “You hear it once and can play it by ear? That’s not fair.”

 

Betraying himself again, admitting that he’d practiced the piece. Leo could have shaken his head at how transparent he was. Instead he teased, “Life’s not fair, Elliot.”

 

That was a sufficient prod to get Elliot crabbing at him and trying to push his way back to the keys. Leo resisted for a bit before abruptly agreeing to move, letting Elliot lose his balance and sprawl over the bench. With a few muttered curses, he regained his composure and glared at Leo, who chose a new spot in a cushy armchair nearby. The nicest thing about the Nightrays’ having their piano in the study was that there were books everywhere, even though they were just for show. Elliot was the only one of them who read, Leo was sure.

 

He plucked a decorative hardcover from a side table and thumbed through it while Elliot resumed practicing his classical pieces. On-point, as always, but without the swaying shoulders or energy. Leo sighed, wishing Elliot wasn’t so stubborn all the time. Even though it had only been for that brief moment, he had played what he wanted, and he could be that happy all the time if he weren’t so freaking proud.

 

Well, that was what he had Leo for.


	4. Chapter 4

Oz was pretty good at getting what he wanted, and Gil certainly didn’t strike Ada as the toughest personality to coerce. Even so, she never expected that her brother’s meddling would lead to the three of them out late on a Saturday night on their way to Nightray’s.

 

Ada’s heart had been about ready to pound right out of her chest when Oz dragged Gil back into the guest room with his proposition. Singing jazz had always just been a hobby. To sing on stage…well, sure, it crossed her mind every once in a while when she was singing into a hairbrush, crooning to her reflection in the mirror. And when Uncle Oscar got on a roll telling stories about the clubs he visited and the acts he saw. And sometimes during dull lectures at school.

 

“You heard her voice,” Oz had said to Gil. “She should be on stage, don’t you think?”

 

Mortification gripped Ada. Having Uncle Oscar and Oz compliment her singing was one thing, but Oz’s friend, a Nightray as in _Nightray’s_? How could her brother ask someone who truly knew jazz and didn’t have familial bias?

 

“You do have a lovely voice,” Gil said. Though the soft-spoken compliment was to Ada, the wary look that accompanied it was directed at her brother.

 

Oz swatted his friend on the back. “Don’t be like that, Gil. She should be singing at Nightray’s, shouldn’t she?”

 

“A-Ah...it’s not that I don’t agree she could sing to an audience,” Gil started. Ada felt faint. “It’s just…I don’t think she can perform at Nightray’s. Yet! Yet! You have to be twenty-one to get into the club.”

 

Uncle Oscar had been suspiciously quiet.  When Ada turned to him for backup, something about the way his eyes crinkled in the corners showed his age and made her hesitate. Oz’s next words stayed her protests altogether.

 

“Come on, Gil, you can stay another couple of days, and we’ll all go to the club together. They won’t suspect a thing if you vouch for us! As far as they’re concerned, she’s twenty-one, right?”

 

Another couple of days. Oz would stay another couple of days. Ada had made a decision and pressed her lips together.

 

Guilt plagued her now, though. Her selfishness meant Gil had no one to back him up, and he’d given in to her brother’s pushing. The closer they got to the club, the more wound up he seemed to become, wringing his hands and fidgeting with the hat Ada had offered him when they were getting ready to leave.

 

Uncle Oscar had gone ahead to the club earlier. Ada suspected that he was as eager to be around the house as Oz was; her father hadn’t been particularly happy to see either of them or their long-visit suitcases when he finally came home from the train station, seething over her brother’s failure to appear. His mood had nearly spoiled the whole party—or maybe the party had been spoiled, and Ada was too excited about Nightray’s to notice. All the fanciness with her father’s friends and business partners was a bit of a blur for her when the real excitement was later that night.

 

“They’ll have an act lined up already,” Gil said for the umpteenth time, taking a quick drag on his cigarette. His fingers shook as he pulled it out and exhaled a stream of smoke. “So she probably won’t get to sing tonight. They, um, they sometimes have amateur nights, so we can find out when that is…” Drag, exhale. “Um.”

 

“Gil, re _lax_ ,” Oz said with a sigh. He plucked the cigarette from Gil’s hand and dropped it on the ground, stamping it out without breaking stride. “Jeez. Good thing you’re legal—I’m getting you something to take the edge off as soon as we get to the bar.”

 

Ada figured she might as well offer to give Gil the hat instead of just lending it to him; he was all but mangling the brim in his hands. “I can’t drink tonight! I’m responsible for you!”

 

“I’m older than you are. If anyone is the designated driver here, it’s me.”

 

“It’s definitely not you,” Ada said. Oz gave her a teasing smack on the arm for her joke, but Gil didn’t seem to realize she was kidding and hunched his shoulders.

 

Ada had been expecting a big sign and crowds of people clamoring to get into the club. Instead, when Gil said they’d arrived, they were outside of a fancy-looking house as big as Uncle Oscar’s. It looked more like the kind of old house where people had balls once upon a time. The only thing that convinced Ada that this was the famous Nightray’s was the muffled sound of a jazz band’s playing.

 

“Upstairs is the house,” Gil said, pointing up for emphasis. He tilted his wrist to point down. “The club is in the basement.”

 

“How did Uncle Oscar even find this place? It’s really a hole in the wall.” Ada glanced over at Oz, who shrugged.

 

“How does anyone find it? Must be pretty good if they don’t even advertise and still bring in a crowd.”

 

“The entrance is around back,” Gil said, making his way up to the front door. Exchanging a look, Oz and Ada followed.

 

“Which explains why we’re going in the front,” Oz said dryly.

 

“Avoiding the bouncer.” Gil pulled out his keys and shakily unlocked the front door. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

 

“You have a _bouncer_?” The concept seemed to thrill Oz, though Ada couldn’t say she shared his enthusiasm. She had half a mind to agree with Gil aloud when he swung open the door.

 

The Nightrays had to be dripping in money. The inside of their house was even more beautiful than the outside. While Gil led them towards the back of the house, Ada looked around, trying to take in as much as she could of the high ceilings and antiquey-in-a-good-way furniture.

 

They ended up in the kitchen, at a door partially concealed by the refrigerator in the back corner. “We can go through this way,” he said, taking a slow breath. Oz elbowed him.

 

“Thanks, Gil,” he murmured.

 

A shriek behind them caused the three of them to jump. Ada whirled around and saw a little girl in the doorway. Her long, dark hair stuck out in some places like she’d been sleeping on it—which she probably had been, considering her pink pajamas—and her eyes were wide.

 

“Gil!” The girl took off at a run, narrowly dodging the kitchen table, and shoved Ada and Oz out of her way as she launched herself at Gil. Who, Ada thought, looked relatively unsurprised that a small child was currently latched onto his leg.

 

“It’s way past your bedtime, Alice,” he said, putting a hand on her head. She leaned into the pat like a cat might. Ada bit her lip to hide her smile. “What are you still doing up?”

 

“What are _you_ doing here at all?” she countered, the corners of her mouth drooping when Gil retracted his hand. “It’s been forever since you came home, Gil. Wait ‘til I tell El—”

 

“We don’t have to tell anybody that I’m here,” Gil said hurriedly. He crouched down so that he was eye-level with Alice. “I just brought some friends over to hear the band.”

 

Alice scrunched up her face and asked in a small voice, “So you’re not here to see me?”

 

Gil rested one knee on the tile floor, patting Alice’s head again. “Of course I want to see you, too. What a lucky coincidence that my friends wanted to hear the others play the same night I was planning to visit!”

 

His eyes darted up to Oz and Ada for a split-second, and Ada caught sight of guilt disproportionate to his white lie. It was like he thought they’d be mad that he was comforting Alice—his little sister, maybe? Oz had said that Gil had a big family. Ada could’ve sworn he’d only mentioned younger brothers, but there were enough siblings that she could easily have gotten confused.

 

“Oh. Well, good!” Alice took the opportunity to flop against Gil and glance over her shoulder at Oz and Ada. “You can go downstairs,” she said to them.

 

Had to be his little sister, Ada thought, eager to move along his friends and have her long-absent brother to herself. A spark of understanding flashed in her heart.

 

Without Gil, though, she had no protection if she got carded in the club.

 

Oz seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because he squatted down to the floor, too. “Hey, Alice. I’m Oz. Gil’s told me a lot about you.”

 

Alice tilted her head back to look at him down her nose. She only looked to be about ten years old—maybe that was why everything she did was adorable, Ada thought. “Well, I haven’t heard a _thing_ about you. Not even about the dumb kiddie books you like.”

 

Gil must have talked about her brother a lot, Ada mused. Not that you had to talk to Oz long to figure out that his favorite thing to read was a series of books from his childhood, but still, it was a riot to hear a child giving him grief over it. Ada giggled.

 

Alice’s attention turned from Oz to Ada. “Who are you?”

 

“I’m Oz’s sister Ada,” Ada said, feeling unusually tall with Oz and Gil crouching on either side of her. “It’s nice to meet you, Alice.”

 

Alice evaluated her for a long time, and Ada read distaste in her tiny face. When she opened her mouth, Ada was sure that another territorial insult was coming, but Oz cut the little girl off.

 

“Alice, you know what my favorite thing to do is?” he asked. Distracted, she looked over at him. Oz flashed a toothy smile and reached over to tweak Gil’s nose. Gil squawked—well, Ada thought, maybe _squeaked_ was the more appropriate word. Alice let out a bark of laughter, then clapped her hands over her mouth. “Tease Gil.”

 

“Me, too!” Alice said, letting her hands fall into her lap. “Well. That and eat meat.”

 

“Meat is good,” Oz agreed. Alice straightened her shoulders with delight. “Listen, Alice…do you have any embarrassing stories about Gil?”

 

Now Gil did squawk in protest.

 

“Tons!” Alice gushed. “Probably a thousand!”

 

“Me, too!” Oz said, echoing her earlier excitement. “Gil mentioned it was past your bedtime, and I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble…why don’t I take you back to your room, and we can tell our favorite embarrassing Gil stories?”

 

“Is…is that really necessary?” Gil asked.

 

“Okay!” Alice said, hopping out of Gil’s arms and grabbing Oz by the hand, dragging him out of the kitchen. “You know he doesn’t like cats, right?”

 

“I had my suspicions.” As he was led out, Oz looked back over his shoulder and jerked his chin up. _Go on_ , he seemed to add to Gil and Ada.

 

“Oooh, this was a bad idea,” Gil mumbled. His skin just kept getting paler, Ada thought, or maybe it was the all-black wardrobe he seemed to live in.

 

He unlocked the back door and swung it inward. The muted jazz that had gotten louder as they made their way through the house jumped up in volume. Gil stepped down first, then stood to the side so Ada could come down the first step and he could shut and lock the door again. The stairwell was pitch black around them.

 

“Stay close to me so I can cover for you.” Even though she was right next to him on the stairs, Ada had to lean in a bit to hear Gil’s whisper. The jazz music wasn’t helping. She clung to the railing and followed the sounds of his shoes moving down the stairs. “I don’t think anyone will ask, but just in case.”

 

Gil took the steps quickly, though Ada could hear him pause every few to wait for her to catch up. Maybe the silver heels hadn’t been such a good idea—they were the tallest, thinnest spikes Ada owned, purchased for one of her father’s events that required little standing—but they just felt so _nightclub-y_. Ada didn’t really own nightclub clothes; she hoped her mother’s little black cocktail dress, which Ada couldn’t believe finally fit her, would blend in.

 

A few steps below, Ada could hear Gil unlocking another door. He turned the knob, and a stripe of light from the other side came in, along with a burst of drumming. Applause followed, even a trilling whistle, and Ada gripped the railing more tightly.

 

The door let out behind a partition at the back of the bar. Gil led Ada along the wall, the bartender paying them no mind, to where the floor opened up into a group of round tables-for-two where couples in expensive-looking suits and dresses sat. In the opposite corner, Ada could just barely see the stage, what looked like a raised platform on which the band was performing: a man with a catlike smirk and broad shoulders on the drums, a woman in a flapper dress playing a mean trumpet, a ponytailed man who looked to be about Uncle Oscar’s age plucking at a four-string bass, and an unsmiling man with shaggy hair at the piano.

 

Even from the muted music she had heard in the stairwell, Ada could tell that these guys were pros. Not that it was much of a surprise for performers at Nightray’s, but this was Ada’s first time listening to live music. There was a quality in hearing it live that old recordings couldn’t capture. The drumbeats pounded in Ada’s chest, her gait adjusting so that she stepped in time with the rhythm of the bass guitar. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the woman on trumpet, her fingers flying over the buttons to play a fast streak of music. The pianist drew little attention to himself apart from his handsomeness, but he played a jaunty beat that didn’t match his bored expression.

 

Ada bumped into Gil more than once as they were weaving through the tables and standing patrons. It was hard to focus on his guidance when the band was up there doing their thing. They didn’t look nervous at all, even with club attendees crowding around on the floor below them, some even swing dancing to the music.

 

Off in the corner, relatively out of sight in the crowded club, Gil stopped and turned around to face Ada. They stood a bit apart from most of the patrons, though Ada wished they’d been able to sit at a table. Her feet had already walked all the way here, but with the stairs and the stilted steps that came with navigating a crowded space, they’d really start to ache. Beside her, Gil was looking around like he was expecting a hit man to jump up from one of the tables; his anxiety seemed to attract the attention of customers passing them on their way to the bar, and Ada wished he’d knock it off. He was supposed to be keeping attention _away_ from her.

 

Gil leaned over and raised his voice to talk over the music. “That’s the house band. They’re some of the Baskervilles. There’s, um.” He paused to look up at the stage, craning his neck even though he was much taller than Ada and should have been able to see them just fine. “Dug on the drums. Levi on bass. Lottie on the trumpet, and Oswald on piano. They’re Alice’s family.”

 

“Oh! I thought she was your sister.”

 

“Not exactly. The Baskervilles are a family of musicians, and the Nightrays own the local jazz scene. Kind of makes sense that they go way back.” Ada thought it was interesting that Gil didn’t say ‘we go way back,’ but she didn’t say anything. “They play here all the time, and the younger ones stay upstairs when they perform. So. Yeah, I guess Alice kind of is like my sister.”

 

The crowd around them seemed to be growing larger, and Ada inched closer to Gil to avoid being jostled. She did a quick scan of the club. Her dress definitely fit in with what the other women were wearing, which was a relief, though next time—if she came again, of course—she’d have to remember to wear more makeup and jewelry. Everyone else seemed to be wearing something sparkly.

 

Between two other patrons, Ada caught sight of a flash of gold on the other side of the club: a man with long, blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed. His head was turned towards the stage, a faint smile on his face. Something in his profile—his long nose, the natural elegance of his posture—reminded her of Gil, but this man had an air of confidence about him that her companion lacked.

 

A couple walked in front of her, and Ada lost sight of the man. She craned her neck, cursing her heels for not being high enough for her to see past them.

 

“What’s wrong?” Gil asked, and suddenly Ada felt foolish. She pulled her chin back in.

 

“Oh, I just…saw a person across the club.”

 

“A person?” Gil’s height was enough for him to look in the direction she’d been moments ago. His eyes widened. “Vince!”

 

“Vince?”

 

“My little brother, Vincent.” Gil rubbed the back of his neck. “The Nighrays took us in when we were kids.” The fact that Gil was adopted was news to Ada, and she wondered if her brother knew. She forced herself to focus on this and not the fact that now she had a way to be introduced to the handsome man on the other side of the club.

 

“Oz said you had a big family,” Ada said.

 

“Yeah, I’ve got a lot of siblings. Um.” Gil held up his hands and counted off his fingers. “There’s…Fred, Ernest, Claude, Vanessa…me, Vince, and—”

 

The band finished its song with one last triumphant bar from Lottie’s trumpet, Oswald accompanying her at the high end of the piano. All around them, the club went crazy cheering, and the crowd nearest Ada and Gil finally did jostle them. A couple stepped back, squishing between them. Ada squeaked in surprise and backed up, accidentally bumping into someone else. Apologizing profusely, Ada tried to change course again, slowed by her awful, horrible shoes and their unfairly high heels.

 

The band started another set, this time even more upbeat, and people started getting up to dance. When Ada looked up, she couldn’t even see Gil anymore in the sea of people. Everywhere around her, patrons were sloshing glasses of liquor, laughing, cheering, clapping, standing, sitting, dancing, reaching for one another, calling for one another. Wasn’t Uncle Oscar coming here tonight? Where was he, to rescue her with his broad shoulders and paternal tallness?

 

As quickly as she could, Ada made her way to the wall, where she could inch along and mostly stay out of people’s way. Gil could find her more easily this way, too.

 

“I don’t suppose this is your first time at a club?”

 

A soft voice lilted from above, and Ada looked up to find herself standing right next to Gil’s brother Vincent. The question would have been teasing from someone like her brother, but Vincent’s expression was kind, no smirk or spite in sight. His eyes were two different colors, one the same goldish-brown as Gil’s, the other red. Or, at least it looked red in this lighting—Ada couldn’t be sure—but definitely darker than the other eye.

 

She hoped she wasn’t staring. “Yes. You can tell?”

 

“Begging your pardon, of course. The house is huge, but there’s only so much square footage in the club itself. It can be tough to navigate, even for old pros.” Vincent tilted his head down a bit so that Ada didn’t have to lean back as much. “You avoided being stampeded quite well, actually.”

 

A joke. He was trying to comfort her after that embarrassing display of staggering through the crowd. Something warm blossomed in Ada’s chest, and she giggled. “Th-thank you.”

 

“I’m Vincent.” He held out his hand, and when Ada took it, he turned her hand so that he could kiss the back of it. She resisted the urge to giggle again, knowing it would look schoolgirlish next to this sophisticated man. “Forgive me, but did I see you come in with Gil?”

 

“Oh, yes!” He’d seen her walk in. Well, more likely he’d seen his brother walk in, but still. “He and my brother are friends. Gil…invited us to the club.” It was a lie, but only a little one; Ada doubted Vincent would want to hear that her brother had bullied Gil into bringing them so he could force her up on stage.

 

On stage! Ada sucked in a deep breath. She’d been so taken with the music that she’d forgotten—Oz wanted _her_ to be up on that stage performing. There was no way. Never in a million years. The idea had its glow when he’d first said it, but after seeing the Baskervilles perform, Ada knew she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t anywhere near that level of musical ability, and that was the club’s house band. Not that the regular players wouldn’t be wonderful in a popular club, but this was the band everybody who came to Nightray’s got to hear, not even the once-in-a-lifetime guest acts. Ada could never sing on this stage.

 

“Miss? Are you all right?” Vincent’s face swam in front of her, and Ada reached out, groping the empty air for something to grab and steady herself. She felt a warm hand at her elbow and a second arm around her waist to brace her. She let out a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

 

Vincent was holding her up. That realization brought the clarity back to Ada’s sight, and suddenly it seemed like all the feeling in her body went to the spots where his hands rested. She swallowed.

 

“I’m so sorry. It’s. It’s warm in here.”

 

 “Another drawback of the smaller space.” Vincent pursed his lips and looked around. “Maybe there’s a table?”

 

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” she insisted, using his arms as support when she straightened herself. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“You already apologized,” he pointed out, a bit of coldness in his voice. Quickly, though, he added, “There’s nothing to apologize for. I’m glad you’re all right.”

 

He withdrew his arms, and once again the only thing supporting Ada were the awful spike heels on her aching feet.

 

“Ada!”

 

Gil’s voice behind her startled her out of the sense of loss from Vincent’s pulling away. Ada turned to see him working his way through the thick of the crowd.

 

“We’d better meet him,” Vincent said. Ada couldn’t argue with that ‘we.’ “Why didn’t he go around the perimeter…?”

 

They made their way forward through the clusters of people standing and dancing as the band played. Gil reached them somewhere in the middle.

 

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he huffed. The hat she’d offered him was still crushed onto his head, the brim arching strangely from being pulled at so much. Ada’s stomach dropped. They must have been discovered—where was Oz? Uncle Oscar?—and if she’d thought Gil looked anxious before, it was nothing compared to his obvious panic now.

 

“Okay, Gil, lead the wa—”

 

Long fingers wrapped around her forearm like a vice, and Ada felt herself yanked to the side. Crying out in surprise, Ada felt her body weight swing in the direction of the hand that had grabbed her, and it was enough to finally shake her balance on those heels; she fell against someone—a man, she thought, her chin against his chest. When she looked up, she met the gaze of a very intense pair of blue eyes.

 

“And just what do you think _you’re_ doing in a club clearly marked to be twenty-one-and-up?”

 

“Ahh…ah-ah…” Gil stammered behind her. At the same time, Ada thought she heard Vince say, _Oh._ “Ada, this is. Ah. My little brother—”

 

Ada straightened, bracing herself against the boy she recognized in passing from school. “Elliot.”


	5. Chapter 5

Oz was halfway down the hall behind Alice, who was chattering away about a stuffed cat doll she liked to throw at Gil to make him scream, when another door opened and two boys who looked to be around Ada’s age stepped out. One was as tall as Oz with light hair and narrowed eyes; the other Oz wasn’t sure was a boy at first, with his baggy clothes and long, messy hair, but when he spoke it was more obvious. “Alice?”

 

“Hi, Leo,” she chirped back. “Don’t worry, I’m going back to bed right now.”

 

The taller boy’s eyes hadn’t left Oz’s face, and it was starting to make Oz nervous. “Who’s your friend?” he asked. It was the kind of phrasing an adult would use so as not to frighten a child, but it didn’t sound particularly comforting when asked through gritted teeth. Oz supposed he couldn’t blame the kid.

 

Before he could answer the question, Alice beat him to it. “This is Oz,” she said, tugging on his hand as if he were a stuffed animal. For a little girl, she was deceptively strong. “He’s Gil’s friend.”

 

That got the taller boy’s attention. “Gil? Gil is here?”

 

“He’s in the club with some girl,” Alice said dismissively. After a beat, she gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. “I wasn’t supposed to tell that he was here!”

 

“Some girl?” The boys exchanged looks. “That doesn’t sound like Gil. Nor does it explain why… _Oz_ …is following you to your room.” Hoo, boy, this kid really wanted to pick a fight. Oz put up his hands in front of himself and chuckled, trying to diffuse the tension.

 

“Sorry, sorry. We’re getting off to the wrong start here. Gil took my sister to see the club, since she’s really into jazz, so I thought I’d see Alice back to bed, then join them down there. I’m Oz Vessalius.”

 

He held out his hand to shake, but the expression on the boy’s face only shifted from angry to furious.

 

“ _Vessalius?_ ” he repeated, his hair practically standing on end.

 

“Oh,” the long-haired boy—Leo—said. “Ada.”

 

Oz started. “You two know Ada?” he asked, but the taller boy had already shoved past him and was storming down the stairs.

 

“Hey, Elliot!” Leo followed him. On instinct, Oz did, too. He was faintly aware of Alice behind him yelling something in her child-high voice, and then tiny footsteps thumped behind him.

 

Oz was right on Elliot and Leo’s heels by the time they got to the kitchen. Elliot jammed a key into the back door but was shaking so badly that he couldn’t turn it; Leo put a hand on top of his and sidled in between Elliot and the door to unlock it properly.

 

“Hey, kid!” Oz rammed his foot against the door to keep Elliot from opening it. The kid looked about ready to blow a gasket. “What’s your problem?”

 

“My problem is that the club has a strict twenty-one-and-up policy, and, unless I’m mistaken, Ada Vessalius is still a student at Lutwidge Academy.” Elliot grabbed the doorknob and yanked, the sheer force behind the movement enough to send Oz flying into the kitchen table.

 

“Heeeey,” Alice whined from the doorway. Leo blocked her path while Elliot stormed down the stairs. Oz followed him to the club.

 

A second door was at the bottom of the stairs, and Elliot got that open with little trouble, making up for his previous struggle. Oz thought for a second that Elliot might shut the door and lock him in, but instead he whirled around in the doorway.

 

“You may collect your sister and leave,” he said. “Gil should never have agreed to this. I can only assume he was tricked.”

 

At that, Oz’s temper flared. When Elliot turned his back to him again, Oz clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “Listen, kid,” he said. He could tell it bothered Elliot to be called a kid, evidenced by the way he tensed at the term. “Gil and I are friends, and Ada’s a heck of a jazz singer. I asked him if he could show her the club, and he agreed, because that’s the nice kind of guy he is.” He pulled on Elliot’s shoulder, forcing him to turn around and face him. Oz flashed a grin. “So don’t go shooting off your mouth, okaaaaay?”

 

Elliot jerked away from him, but not before Oz caught a split second of doubt on his face. Somewhere in that warning, he’d said something that struck a chord with the kid. Not enough to dissuade him from going in after Ada, apparently, because as soon as Oz’s hand was off his shoulder, he was off and running. With a low curse to himself, Oz followed, slamming the door shut behind him.

 

The club was jumping, filled with patrons from wall to wall. Oz would have taken a moment to appreciate the décor of the bar and the stage, but he was too busy trying to locate his sister before Elliot did. A flash of long blonde hair caught his eye, and he tried to push past Elliot on the stairs, but the kid must have seen her at just the same moment, because he took off, too.

 

A second person caught Oz’s eye: Gil, coming towards them with panic written all over his face. Oz couldn’t hear him, but he could see his mouth forming the name _Elliot_.

 

 _Elliot._ The recollection made Oz hesitate for a second; Gil had mentioned a younger brother named Elliot. He wasn’t the full brother, Oz didn’t think—that was Vince?—but he was the favorite. Gil talked about his family pretty rarely, and when he did, it was about Elliot.

 

“He likes _Holy Knight_ , too, Oz. I think you’d get along.”

 

Well, Gil was always the optimistic sort.

 

Not so much now; while Elliot was hugging the walls to make his way around to where Ada was standing with some light-haired guy— _who was that?_ Why was Gil all the way over here if she was all the way over there?—Gil started flailing his way through the crowd in Ada’s direction. Oz followed Elliot.

 

Even along the walls there were tons of people. Oz’s progress slowed a lot as he tried to get by as best he could without pushing too much. When he was about ten feet behind him, Oz saw Elliot grab Ada’s arm and pull her stumbling towards him. Oz shoved the last few clubgoers out of his way.

 

“And just what do you think _you’re_ doing in a club clearly marked to be twenty-one-and-up?”

 

Gil was saying something, but Oz was too busy reaching out for Elliot himself to listen. He grabbed the kid by the scruff of his sweater and pulled so hard Elliot’s head nearly snapped back. “Just what do _you_ think you’re doing putting your hands on my sister?”

 

Even though Oz never wanted Ada to be in any sort of trouble, he’d also kind of always had that older-brother fantasy of beating up some guy on her behalf. Not that this Elliot kid was a loser boyfriend who didn’t know what he was letting get away, but since Ada had more sense than to pick a guy like that anyway, Oz supposed he’d take what he could get. He couldn’t help a short laugh at the fact that this was actually happening.

 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Elliot snapped back, and Oz felt the kid’s elbow jerk into his stomach. It was a beautiful jab; it all but knocked the wind out of him. Damn. He forgot that this kid was as big as he was.

 

“We need to get out of here,” Gil said, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. There was a firmness in his voice that Oz wasn’t used to. “We’re disrupting the customers.”

 

To the side, Oz could see Ada leaning on the arm of the man she’d been with earlier. From close up, there was no doubt in Oz’s mind that this was Gil’s full brother; they had the same resting expression of mild anxiety.

 

Vincent and Ada led the group of them through the crowd again and behind the bar to the hidden stairs. Oz followed, with Gil carefully escorting Elliot in the back. Oz would have thought that two brothers who’d obviously been close growing up might have something to say to one another, but they were silent the whole time.

 

Back up in the kitchen, Leo was still standing in the doorway with his arms wrapped around Alice’s shoulders. Alice looked like she was trying to chew her way to freedom, her slobber all over the distressed grey sleeve of Leo’s shirt. Between the shaggy hair and glasses, Oz had no way of reading his expression. “Ah, you caught the intruders. Well done, Elliot.”

 

Elliot muttered something Oz couldn’t quite hear, but he did catch the word “smartass.”

 

Once the group was all standing around the kitchen, Elliot rounded on Ada. “Listen. Your brother said you love jazz. I get it, okay?” He wasn’t spitting fire the way he had been in the club, but Oz could hear his temper just below the surface. “But what you did tonight is illegal and could get my family in very serious trouble. You need to think before you act.”

 

Ada looked about ready to shrink into the floor tiles. “I’m sorry.” She snuck a look at Vincent, whose attention was fixed on Gil.

 

Elliot’s hands went to his hips. “As long as you understand that it’s not just your own reputation on the line.” For a minute, Oz thought he was actually calming down, but then he turned to Gil, and Oz swore he saw a vein bulging from Elliot’s temple. “And _you._ ”

 

Any older-brotherness Gil had channeled downstairs to get the group to move disappeared in the face of his little brother’s wrath. Though he towered over Elliot, he certainly didn’t look tall right now.

 

“You go off to college and don’t come home for _five years,_ and when you do, it’s to pull shit like this. You don’t say you’re coming, you tell Alice not to tell me you’re here.” Elliot’s voice almost cracked. Almost. Oz felt a stab of sympathy. Even if Gil looked pathetic right now, he was still Elliot’s older brother. Oz wondered if Ada felt that way, too; it wasn’t like he came to the house much these days, either. “Why’d you even bother coming _back_?”

 

Having said his piece, apparently, Elliot trembled with sheer fury for a second before turning on his heel and leaving. Leo’s head turned as he passed, and Oz imagined his hidden eyes following Elliot towards the stairs.

 

Without any warning, Leo unwrapped his arms from Alice’s shoulders and went after him. Alice, still fighting an apparently iron grip that suddenly disappeared, yelped and staggered, falling back onto her butt—thankfully on the thick carpeting in the sitting room on the other side of the threshold. She still let out a low whine, and Gil hurried to pick her up.

 

“Is that your brother?” Oz asked Alice. She sniffed and nodded.

 

Oz wasn’t quite sure how the Baskervilles worked—Gil said they were a family, but in all of his stories it seemed like they were just a cluster of random people overcrowding one house—but something about Leo’s and Alice’s dark hair and fair complexions looked like it shared DNA.

 

Oz put his hands on his hips and leaned in towards Alice. “He’s not as nice as Gil, is he?” With a little giggle, Alice shook her head and buried her face in Gil’s shirt, her hair forming a curtain to hide her expression.

 

“That’s not nice,” Gil murmured, though he couldn’t hide the smile in his voice from Oz. “Big brothers do the best they can.”

 

Even though he knew Gil was talking about Elliot, Oz couldn’t help glancing over at Ada. She was looking right back with a smile.


	6. Chapter 6

After all those years of planning what he’d say to Gil’s face if he ever saw him again, Elliot had certainly never imagined running off like a little kid at the end. When Gil first left, mostly Elliot’s imaginary conversations with him were the things he’d say if Gil were still around: school, books, that sort of thing. For a while, it was just _why won’t you come home_ , with shades of _did I do something wrong_.

 

Gil called home sometimes. For a while, he’d cycle through all of his siblings before talking to Elliot—who always went last because he talked the longest—but then the calls really became to Elliot alone.

 

“You should come home soon,” Elliot had said Gil’s first year away at school. “It’s almost Christmas.”

 

“Did you get my present in the mail?” Gil asked instead of answering.

 

“Yeah. I’ll open it when you get here so you can see my reaction.” That decision was about the only thing that kept Elliot from tearing the paper off a distinctly bookish-feeling package.

 

A long pause. “I don’t think I’ll come, Elliot. My friend isn’t going home, and I don’t want him to be alone on Christmas.”

 

“So bring him with you,” Elliot said impatiently. The solution was simpler than Gil was making it sound. Gil laughed.

 

“I think…it’d be best if we just had a quiet Christmas. Maybe next year.”

 

It hurt thinking that Gil would rather spend Christmas alone with a friend than at home with his family, but if Gil’s friend didn’t have any family, Elliot had supposed it was noble of Gil to do right by him. That had been then, though. Tonight, after all these years, Elliot had finally met the person who’d kept Gil from his own brother.

 

He made Elliot sick.

 

Elliot took another deep breath, flopping back onto his bed. Running away had probably looked really stupid and immature. Leo would tell him if it looked stupid. Leo was good about telling Elliot when he looked stupid.

 

Which meant Elliot should probably start bracing himself now, actually.

 

As if summoned by Elliot’s thoughts, Leo came into his room without knocking and shut the door behind him. Sometimes when Elliot closed himself off from the world, Leo would insult him walking through the door, and other times he’d give it an agonizing moment of silence before dropping the bomb. Apparently this was one of the second type. Elliot groaned, and rolled over onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow.

 

Instead of a barbed comment from Leo, Elliot instead felt the bed dip slightly under Leo’s weight as he sat beside him. Then there was a light, warm touch, a hand barely ghosting against his back between his shoulder blades.

 

“When I heard Gil was here, I expected the worst,” Leo said finally. “You weren’t too bad, though.”

 

Elliot wanted to sit up and talk, but any movement might make Leo pull back his hand. Even though he already felt better, Elliot wasn’t going to sabotage the rare comfort.

 

Leo was never the type to make follow-up comments, though, and the silence was too much to bear. Elliot turned his head sideways so he could talk, thinking that the minimal movement wouldn’t deter Leo, but as soon as his cheek rested against the pillow, Leo’s hand disappeared. Elliot sighed and, after a pause, sat up.

 

“So I was at least partially bad.”

 

“You yelled a lot.” Leo always informed him of his mistakes in such a matter-of-fact voice. Elliot rubbed his temples. “But I’ve heard you yell louder at me, so you couldn’t have been as mad as you thought at him.”

 

Damn him and his complicated way of talking. Was Elliot supposed to feel guilt for yelling at Leo at some other point in time? Annoyed that Leo thought he wasn’t really all that mad? Curious that maybe Leo had a point?

 

“Like hell I’m not mad at him!” he snapped back, but even Elliot could hear how halfhearted it was. Leo smiled that same cryptic smile. Elliot was just about to repeat himself with a bit more conviction when a knock came on his door.

 

The softest knock imaginable, one that triggered memories of nights of Elliot’s childhood spent huddled under blankets with a flashlight and a book to read together.

 

“Elliot?” Gil’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Alice wanted to say goodnight to you. She specifically requested you come alone.” He chuckled. Elliot didn’t say anything. After a pause, Gil added quietly, “It was good to see you, Elliot.” Then his footsteps disappeared down the hall.

 

With Leo’s blessing—an indifferent shrug—Elliot went down the hall to the guest room where Alice was sleeping. He supposed he and Leo were supposed to be watching her while the band performed downstairs, but it wasn’t unusual to hear her walk by on her way to the bathroom at night. They’d have to be more careful next time they were babysitting.

 

This guest room was practically Alice’s room, full of stuffed animals and pillows and blankets in her favorite colors. It used to be where Elliot’s sister slept, but Vanessa moved up to the top floor after Ernest moved out so that she wouldn’t hear the music as much. The faint strings and drums from the basement had never bothered Elliot; in fact, it was hard to sleep without them.

 

Alice didn’t mind them either. She looked like she was about to fall into a deep sleep when Elliot knocked and came in; she was snuggled up in a cocoon of blankets and stuffed animals that could only be Gil’s handiwork. He sat as carefully as he could on the side of her bed; Alice hated when anybody sat on her stuffed animals.

 

“Good night, Alice.”

 

“Good night, Elliot.” Alice stared up at him, and Elliot could sense there was more to say. “Don’t be mean to Oz. I like him.” Almost shyly, she grabbed the nearest stuffed animal—a plush rabbit Oswald had given her for her birthday—and crushed it to her chest in an embrace. “He’s a good big brother.”

 

“Better than me?” Elliot asked, hoping his question sounded casual.

 

“Better than _Leo_ ,” she grumped in response. “And he’s _actually_ my big brother.”

 

“Leo’s a good brother.” He wasn’t, really, but Elliot would defend him anyway.

 

“You just think that because he’s nice to you. Leo likes you better than he likes me.”

 

“Now I know that’s not true.” Elliot brushed a stray hair out of Alice’s face when she yawned. “Good brothers don’t love their friends more than their family.”

 

“…Don’t be mean to Gil, either,” Alice mumbled drowsily, her eyes fluttering shut.


	7. Chapter 7

For the rest of the weekend, Ada didn’t think she saw Gil without a cigarette in his hand. Oz was constantly taking them away from him with a reprimand, then putting them out in inappropriate places.

 

“You know our father’s going to notice the burn marks on the rug in the dining room eventually, right?” Ada asked Sunday night. Oz put his hand in Gil’s coat pocket to take the whole box of cigarettes away from him before he could light up again.

 

“You worry too much,” he answered.

 

Even when she was exasperated with him, Ada couldn’t stay mad long; it was too nice having her brother home. They could stay up late drinking tea on the couch and talking, laughing, poking each other with socked toes. Whatever had festered between her brother and father years ago had driven Oz away; maybe now things could be better.

 

Leaving for school in the morning on Monday was so undesirable an option when Oz was home that Ada had half a mind to pretend to be sick.

 

“We’re playing hooky, and you should, too,” Oz said after phoning in some vacation time. Something about her brother’s flippant tone made her think he was trying to goad her into going to school after all, so she did.

 

It may have been a sleepy Monday for Ada, but it certainly wasn’t for her teachers; the business made the day go by quickly. It wasn’t until Ada was on the stairs leading down into the main foyer that time seemed to stop.

 

Elliot and Leo were standing at the bottom of the stairs.

 

It was obvious that they were waiting for her, or at least that Elliot was; his eyes had fixed on her midway up the stairs and followed her down. Leo, leaning against the bannister, appeared to be lost in a book.

 

Ada greeted them as soon as she reached the floor, and the three of them moved out of the way of oncoming students. Though she was almost afraid to ask, Ada followed up with, “What’s up?”

 

“Not much, what’s up with you?” Leo asked absently, not looking up from his book.

 

Elliot pursed his lips. “I. I left abruptly the other night. It wasn’t right of me to walk out like that.”

 

An apology? The sight of Elliot looking like he’d just bitten into a lemon was too much. Ada laughed.

 

His face splotched, so Ada made a point to speak up before he could storm off again. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Elliot! I’m not mad. You had every right to be angry that I was putting your family in a tough spot. You don’t need to apologize.”

 

“I never said I was sorry,” Elliot said. He reminded Ada of how Snowdrop, her cat, would puff up if she tried to rub his tummy.

 

“And it was Gil he walked out on, not you, exactly,” Leo added brightly, looking up from his book. “So it’s not really clear why he’s apologizing to you.”

 

“I’m not apologizing! I’m just acknowledging that I shouldn’t have acted the way I did.”

 

“So, you regret your actions and are addressing your regret in hopes that Ada will understand and not hold it against you? Very different from apologizing.”

 

“Listen, you…”

 

Ada was starting to feel like she wasn’t part of the conversation anymore, and since Elliot had been waiting to talk to her, she didn’t want to waste the opportunity to jump in and kick-start a friendship. “Well, either way, I’m glad you talked to me, Elliot. You know, for all the years my uncle talked about your family’s club, it never occurred to me that you might be a Nightray as in Nightray’s!”

 

“Your uncle told you about the club?” Elliot asked.

 

“How common a name did you think Nightray was, exactly?” Leo asked at the same time.

 

Ada got the impression that the two of them talked over one another a lot, because neither repeated himself or looked at all confused. After a second’s delay, she opted to answer Elliot’s question and pretend she hadn’t quite heard Leo’s.

 

“Yeah—you might know him, since he’s a regular. Oscar Vessalius? I grew up on his stories about all the legends he’s seen at Nightray’s,” Ada said. Elliot tilted his head thoughtfully. “He promised to take me there on my twenty-first birthday for my first drink.”

 

Uncle Oscar had missed the kerfuffle Ada caused Saturday night, but he had been at the club and filled her in on the band’s great set. “That Oswald Baskerville’s pretty good at tickling the ivories,” he’d told her, “but I hear he’s got a younger sibling who puts him to shame. Some prodigy the Nightrays are hiding from us until he’s legal to play at the club.”

 

Ada relayed her uncle’s commentary, figuring at least it showed some loyalty to the success of Elliot’s family’s business—and, fine, maybe just a little to see if Elliot could confirm or deny the dirt. Uncle Oscar would love it if she had the insider’s scoop.

 

The reaction she got wasn’t quite what she’d expected. Elliot’s burst into laughter, but not the mean kind; he genuinely looked pleased. “Oh, is that the rumor? What’s your uncle’s source?”

 

Leo—one of the Baskervilles, Ada remembered belatedly—pressed his lips together as if she’d resurfaced an unpleasant memory. His attention didn’t stay on her long; he glanced over at Elliot before snapping his book open again.

 

“Wait a minute,” Ada said, feeling excitement bubbling in her chest. “Leo, don’t tell me you’re—”

 

Before she could finish her question, another student, someone from Ada’s literature class, jogged up to the trio. “Ada? You better get outside. Your brother’s looking for you, and he’s kind of making a scene on the front lawn.”


	8. Chapter 8

Oz went from taking the bus in high school to taking the train in college. By the time he was out of the dorms and into an apartment, he had Gil to drive him wherever he wanted to go. He’d never had any need for a license. The only think Oz disliked about having Gil drive him places was his car; he’d never particularly cared for the smell of cigarette smoke, so even in the dead of winter, they had to ride around with the windows down.

 

His conversation with Gil over lunch had been too important to wait for Ada to come home, though. He insisted that they drive to her fancy academy and meet her.

 

“Are you sure Ada won’t be embarrassed if we pick her up at school?” Gil asked, coming to a slow stop at the intersection.

 

“We could’ve made that light.” Oz put his feet up on the dashboard. “And, no, of course she won’t be.”

 

She did look a little red when she came running across the front lawn, though. Maybe getting out of the car and asking every student who passed if they had seen her hadn’t been his best move. Oz was about to call out to her when he realized who her company was; on either side of Ada were Elliot and Leo.

 

Gil must have seen them in the same moment, because Oz heard him groan. When he turned to look, Gil had sunk down in his seat. Elliot seemed to spot him anyway and came to a dead stop about ten feet away.

 

“Oz, what’s wrong?” Ada was a bit out of breath. “I heard you were making a scene out here.”

 

“Making a scene?” Oz echoed. Gil snorted behind him. Elliot circled around the front of the car and stopped by the driver’s side window. Whatever he was saying to Gil, Oz couldn’t make out. “I just asked a few of your classmates if they’d seen you. Didn’t want to miss you!”

 

“What’s going on? Is everything all right? Uncle Oscar?”

 

“Whoa, whoa, everything’s fine!” Oz put up his hands. “Don’t worry so much, Ada. We’re all okay. I’ve actually got some good news I couldn’t wait to tell you, so we came to pick you up from school.” He gestured to Gil’s car behind him, a beat-up old thing that Elliot was pursing his lips looking at. “Hop in!”

 

Ada said goodbye to Leo, standing behind her reading a book. He replied without looking up and she turned to Elliot, still camped outside Gil’s door. Oz ushered his sister into the backseat and slid into the passenger’s seat himself.

 

“…me home,” Elliot was saying, his hands balled up into fists by his sides.

 

“Maybe, Elliot,” Gil said mildly, a smile ghosting across his face.

 

“Sorry for the smell,” Oz said over his shoulder to Ada. “I keep telling him to quit.”

 

Gil winced. Elliot leaned down and evaluated Oz.  “The smoking? He wouldn’t listen to me, either,” he said.

 

Oz swatted Gil’s arm. “Not even for your kid brother who loves you? You monster.”

 

Scowling at “kid,” Elliot backed away from the car, and Gil started the engine to pull out. Ada tapped her brother’s shoulder. “What is it? What’s the thing you wanted to tell me?”

 

Oz, foregoing his seatbelt, practically spilled out of his seat turning around to face her. “There’s an Amateur Night coming up at Nightray’s at the end of the month, and Gil told me a talent agent is going to be there. So!” He pointed for emphasis. “We’re signing you up!”

 

The color drained out of Ada’s face. “Well…th-that…but…!”

 

“I thought you’d be a little happier about it,” Oz said, sinking back into his seat a bit. “I mean, it’s kind of a big deal. You’ll get to sing on stage, and—”

 

“Well, I’m just a little nervous!” Ada interrupted, wringing her hands. Oz frowned. “I mean…even though it’s Amateur Night, don’t you think there’ll be a lot of better acts there? I…I’d be out of my league.”

 

“What? No way!” Oz said, chuckling as he turned back around in his seat and clicked his seatbelt into place. “You’re going to be awesome, Ada. I had no idea you’d become as good a singer as you are. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

 

Ada was quiet for a moment, then blurted out, “What about Elliot?”

 

“What _about_ Elliot?” Oz asked. Gil’s hands tensed on the steering wheel.

 

“Well, he isn’t mad at me anymore, which is good. He even apologized for the other night.”

 

“Elliot apologized to you?” Gil asked, his wide eyes on Ada in the rear-view mirror.

 

“Sort of. Leo said he—but I think we’re on our way to a good friendship! I don’t want to upset him now.”

 

Oz unclicked his seat belt and turned around again. “Let me tell you something, Ada. This could be a golden opportunity for you, and a true friend wouldn’t hold you back from it. If Mr. Angrypants is going to be your friend, he’s going to have to deal with the fact that you’re the one with a potentially amazing future in music, not him.”

 

“ _Ummm…_ ” Gil hummed quietly, pressing his lips together. Oz’s eyebrows shot up when he looked over; that had sounded an awful lot like disagreement.

 

“Besides…” he said, regaining his momentum, “Gil said the club has a special policy for musicians because of the Baskervilles’ being their house band. You can perform at eighteen. So it’s not illegal for you to be onstage! Just at the bar, you know?” He cupped his hand around his mouth. “But that’s kind of a fine print thing the Nightrays don’t advertise.”

 

“You’re making it sound shady,” Gil said. Two disagreements in one year was a lot for Gil, but in one car ride? Oz wondered if seeing Elliot had thrown him off a little bit.

 

“Well, it’s a special thing for the Baskervilles, right? Anyway…it’s OK, Ada. You won’t be doing anything wrong by performing. It’ll be exciting—you could really have a shot at making it as a singer.”

 

Oz looked at his sister in the rear-view mirror. With her hands folded in her lap, she sat like one of those old-fashioned proper ladies. So why did she look so small?

 

“It’s just happening all so fast,” she said. Oz almost had to strain to hear her.


	9. Chapter 9

Tuesday’s free period meant chasing Elliot up the stairs to claim the west wing music room before another student sat down at the grand piano. Now that they’d been at Lutwidge for a while, Elliot’s rotation in the music room schedule was respected enough that running was hardly necessary. Leo supposed the sooner they got there, the sooner they could play—undoubtedly Elliot’s childish reasoning—but he hated huffing and puffing under the weight of his books. While Elliot uncovered the piano and got comfortable, Leo hovered in the doorway gasping for breath out of his hearing range.

 

Elliot wasn’t as careful with what he played at Lutwidge as he was at home. Jazzy compositions snuck their way into his classical lineup. For a while, Elliot ran scales before getting into traditional songs and lullabies. Leo perched on one of the music room’s parlor chairs—nowhere near as comfortable as the Nightrays’ cushy armchairs—and opened a new book. After each piece, Leo looked up with a smile; Elliot was terrible at looking as if he weren’t hoping for praise and glanced over his shoulder almost unconsciously whenever he reached the last bar.

 

One song flowed into the next for the first few minutes. Leo was looking up when Elliot’s fingers paused on the keys, but Elliot didn’t look over. He studied the sheet music in front of him for a moment before going into the opening notes of a song Leo knew he didn’t have sheet music for.

 

Not quite traditional jazz, but of the 40s era, slow and soft. Leo closed his book and leaned back until he felt the parlor chair tipping a bit beneath him. He did prefer the Nightrays’ study.

 

Leo thought he knew some of the words to this song. He waited for Elliot to play the part that went with the lyrics he knew. “It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die…” he mumbled. What was the next line? Something something, something…“As time goes by.”

 

Elliot stopped, and Leo opened his book. A pointless endeavor; he could feel Elliot’s eyes burning into him as soon as he’d found his place on the page again.

 

“Over already?” Leo asked, looking up at the clock on the wall. “You have another twenty minutes until our next period.

 

“You jumped ahead a stanza,” Elliot said dryly. “That’s the end of the song.”

 

People with fair complexions like Leo’s often complained that they turned red easily, so he was especially proud to say that he didn’t. As if to prove it, he met Elliot’s look head-on.

 

“When you turn eighteen, are you going to join the band?” Elliot asked, pulling one leg up on the bench to tuck under himself as he turned to Leo. “I know Lottie and Oswald did it, too, but I really think my father adjusted the age policy for you.”

 

“Don’t be stupid.” Leo thought so, too, but he couldn’t say he cared for Elliot’s father much. Or Elliot’s older brothers, the ones likely to inherit the club one day. Playing for any of them would spoil the piano altogether.

 

Elliot bristled. “So you’re not going to?”

 

“The club has Oswald. You don’t need me.”

 

“That’s not—”

 

Approaching footsteps pounding down the hall interrupted Elliot’s rebuttal, and a minute later, Ada Vessalius appeared in the doorway, clutching her chest and breathing heavily. Leo felt a spark of camaraderie with her.

 

“Elliot!” she gasped out. For his part, Elliot didn’t look particularly pleased to see her, but that could still be residual anger from their conversation just now—which Leo had no doubt would have escalated into a fight without Ada’s intervention. Tiredness swept over him. “I heard that someone was already using the music room to practice…was that you playing just now?”

 

“…Yes.” It wasn’t like Elliot could deny it, sitting at the piano with his bag and sheet music around him. Leo chuckled. “What do you want?”

 

“Always a gentleman, aren’t you, Elliot?” Leo chirped, earning himself a glare. Ada didn’t acknowledge him.

 

“That was beautiful! I always liked that song, like in the movie, and…ah, I’d never even thought about the piano before, I was always so focused on the lyrics.” She sounded as though she’d regained her breath, and she squared her shoulders to sing: “You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”

 

Elliot’s telltale slouch of disapproval snapped up into proper posture, his eyebrows near his hairline. Leo would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised, too. Ada’s speaking voice was so stilted and squeaky, he never would have guessed she could hold a deeper note. Her brother hadn’t been kidding; she really did have a good voice.

 

No one spoke for a moment, and Ada clasped her hands. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Elliot!”

 

“‘As Time Goes By’?” he asked, and Leo wished that for once Elliot could have actively put venom into his words; he sounded like an idiot asking obviously incorrect questions in earnest.

 

“I don’t think that’s what she’s talking about, Elliot,” Leo said to clue him in. Another glare.

 

“Umm…Oz told me that there was an Amateur Night coming up at Nightray’s,” Ada continued. Her shoulders raised a little. “And, um…he wants me to perform.”

 

Well, Leo thought, Elliot didn’t need his help getting his temper to spike now, at least. “After the uproar you caused last week? Is he _serious_?”

 

“You were the one who caused the uproar, Elliot,” Leo said.

 

“Well, you have to be twenty-one to attend the club,” Ada pressed on, “but only eighteen to perform.”

 

Elliot and Leo exchanged glances. “How do you know about that?” Leo asked.

 

“Gil,” Elliot and Ada answered at the same time. His response was sour, hers delighted.

 

“I know I’m not your first choice for a performer at your family’s club, Elliot, but Oz is really excited about it. He thinks it could be a good opportunity for me. And, to be honest…” Ada took a breath. “I-I’m kind of excited, too. Scared, but…but what if it went well? What if Oz is right, and this turns out to be a big chance for me? That’s…”

 

Leo adjusted his glasses, evaluating her carefully while her attention was on her own fidgeting fingers. She was scared out of her wits. She didn’t sound the least bit excited about getting up on stage to perform—whatever confidence she’d had singing a few minutes earlier was totally gone.

 

“Yeah, right,” Elliot said. Leo started. “Your hands are shaking.”

 

“With excitement!”

 

“With anxiety!” Elliot yelled back. Their free period only had a few minutes left. “What are you so scared of, if this is your big dream? You’re just going to get up on that stage because your brother thinks it’s a good idea? What if you get stage fright? What if you freeze up because you’re not ready to perform in a club? Do you even have experience singing in front of an audience?”

 

Ada said nothing.

 

“Ability to sing will only get you so far in this business. People who sing well in the privacy of their own homes don’t always meet expectations on stage.” Elliot turned fully around on the piano bench to face her and planted his hands on his knees. “If this is something you really want, you’re right—you’re eighteen, I can’t stop you. But if you’re only doing it to make someone else happy, you’re just going to make yourself miserable. I’m not having any part of that.”

 

He could have just told her he was worried, Leo thought wryly. Ada was obviously talented, but Elliot wasn’t wrong in thinking she’d struggle with the stage presence part of performing live. All that fidgeting, all the _ums_ and _uhs_ —she’d look like a child, and she’d hold it over herself for the rest of her life.

 

As if she’d read his thoughts, Ada let her hands drop to her sides and looked up at Elliot. “You’re right,” she said finally. “You’re right, it’s Oz who’s excited. I’m just scared. The idea of getting up on a stage where legends have performed terrifies me, and Oz and Uncle Oscar just tell me not to worry, that I’ll be great. They don’t see the difference between singing at home and singing on stage.”

 

Her voice was steadier now than when she’d first pitched her Amateur Night plan to them, Leo noted. This was probably the truth.

 

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it,” Ada continued. “I just…want to be ready. To know that I did all that I could. If I blow it, it won’t be because I was arrogant and thought I could just walk onto a stage and be great.”

 

Elliot’s eyebrows were knitted, but he wasn’t angry. Leo could tell the difference between his usual level of irritation and anything more. He was listening to her.

 

“So you want my advice,” Elliot concluded.

 

“I want your help,” Ada said. A daring move, Leo thought; “help” was decidedly different from “advice.” Helping meant getting involved, participating, maybe even a little rule-breaking. “I want you to coach me.”

 

“ _Coach_ you?” Elliot parroted.

 

“You know the club better than I do. I’ve known Nightray’s my whole life because of my uncle’s stories, but you’ve actually been there. You can help me.”

 

“And why would I do that?” Elliot asked. “We’re always looking for new talent for our club, sure, but why should I prioritize you over any other act we may discover?”

 

“Because it’s the difference between whether I go on or not. If you don’t help me, I won’t go on,” Ada said. Elliot scoffed and looked away. “Oz will try to talk me into it for a while, but I can handle my brother. He’ll stop pestering me, and he’ll leave.” Ada’s voice dropped on those last words, but she looked as if she were steeling herself for the last part of her argument: “And Gil will leave with him.”

 

The bell for the next period rang, and they would be late anyway since they hadn’t even put away Elliot’s sheet music, but Leo was only vaguely aware of this. Elliot was wearing an expression that up until now, Leo thought he only made for him at the end of a fight.

 

He was going to give in.


	10. Chapter 10

It was all Ada could do not to run whooping from the Lutwidge grounds at the end of the day. Elliot had agreed to help her practice. She’d stand a chance now.

 

This was cause for celebration. Ada opted to take the long way walking home, going through her favorite park. Uncle Oscar always loved coming here when she and Oz were kids. Many a Vessalius tea party had taken place on this grassy hill.

 

Right at the crest of the hill was a big tree. It always offered the best shade. Ada perched on one of its roots, raised above the earth like the thread of a snagged seam. The hill overlooked a small playground, a hidden gem that only families from around the neighborhood really even knew existed. Even though school was out for the day, there were only a handful of kids there with their mothers. Ada smiled to watch the children chasing each other around; it was sad not to see any uncles watching over them.

 

Though they were getting closer to winter every day, snow had stayed at bay. A cool breeze sent Ada’s hair flipping across her eyes, and she hurried to adjust it. It wasn’t until she’d spat out a few loose strands of hair that blew into her mouth that Ada realized someone was standing beside her.

 

“Excuse me,” Vincent said, “did we meet the other night at Nightray’s?”

 

Ada was so shocked to see him she nearly fell off the root. To disguise this, she jumped to her feet. “We did, yes! Vincent, right?”

 

“I’m honored that you remembered,” he said, a tired note in his voice. The Nightrays were pretty well-to-do; Ada wondered if there were some expectation of how they were supposed to act in public. Elliot certainly didn’t act so restrained. “I’m sorry, would you refresh my memory? What was your name again?”

 

“Ada Vessalius.” She almost stuck out her hand to shake but hesitated. Somehow, that didn’t seem like the right action.

 

“Ada,” Vincent repeated. “You’ll forgive me for forgetting. I have met a number of people since arriving in town.” With an afterthought of a smile, he added, “Luckily I’m better at remembering faces than I am names.”

 

She wished he’d relax a little. Unlike Gil, whose formality seemed to come from a desire to make a good impression, Vince’s squared shoulders and poised smile struck Ada as an obligation, a burden he’d carried a long time.

 

“What are you doing here?” she asked, smoothing her uniform skirt.

 

“Here as in this city, or here as in this park?” The corners of his eyes crinkled. Ada remembered thinking that his darker eye had looked red in the club and realized that it wasn’t just the lighting. Here in the daylight she could see that it was, in fact, red. Curious.

 

“Both,” she said. Vince shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Would you like to sit? There are some benches at the bottom of the hill. You’re also welcome to a tree root.” Ada gestured to the tree and laughed.

 

“Where did you say the bench was?” Vince asked, looking around.

 

They found one at the bottom of the hill, near the playground. For a few moments, they watched the children playing. Ada caught the eye of one of the mothers, whose gaze flickered to Vincent, then back to Ada for a wink. Flustered, Ada turned towards her companion.

 

“So, you were saying what brought you here.”

 

“Ah, yes.” He sighed, his breath coming out in puffs Ada could see in the cold. “Well, of course, I’m from here. I came back to visit the club and see if there was any new talent. I visit every so often. As for why I’m here in this park, I’m on my way to meet my brother. Thought I’d take the scenic route.”

 

It sounded lovely to Ada. “Which brother are you meeting?” 

 

Vincent gave her a sidelong look. “Gil,” he answered, as if it should be obvious. Then, appearing to catch himself, he added, “Though I can see where you might be confused, since you’re acquainted with Elliot. It’s been much longer since I’ve seen Gil, though.”

 

“It’s nice having them back, isn’t it? Oz hasn’t come home for ages, and he certainly hasn’t stayed this long since he moved out to college.” Vincent’s smile hovered around politeness, and Ada silently berated herself for hijacking the conversation. “This was my first time meeting Gil in the flesh, though. He seems like a great guy, and I know he’s been a good friend to my brother.”

 

“Gil always puts other people first,” Vincent agreed. “He’s the type to say something like ‘I’m happy when you’re happy.’”

 

“What a wonderful quality,” Ada said. Vincent said nothing, looking down at his hands folded in his lap. Somewhere behind her, a child shrieked with pleasure. “What was it like for you growing up over a jazz club? It must have been exciting.”

 

“It was loud,” Vincent said, “but not unpleasantly so. You’re a fan of jazz music?”

 

“My whole life! My uncle Oscar has the world’s best collection of jazz music—like, old records you can’t even find anymore and everything. He’s been going to Nightray’s forever…I’ve been hearing stories about it since I was a little girl.”

 

“Is that what prompted your sneaking in?” The question had a little bite to it, though thankfully not as much anger as Elliot had unleashed on her. “I’m surprised. That’s so unlike Gil.”

 

“Well, it was actually my brother’s idea,” Ada admitted. “You said it yourself—Gil likes for other people to be happy. We were all getting nostalgic and singing jazz when Oz came home, and he just got a little carried away. Of course, we all went with it…my brother is quite persuasive.”

 

“Is he?” Vincent tilted his head thoughtfully, his eyes faraway. “You’ll forgive me. I’m afraid I’ve heard very little about him. Oz, was it?”

 

“That’s right.” Ada frowned. Oz had been telling her a steady string of Gil stories for years; it seemed unlikely that Gil wouldn’t have mentioned Oz to his own brother. They’d lived together in college and everything. Vincent did say that it had been a while since he’d seen Gil, though.

 

“Well, I hate to leave you, but my brother will be expecting me,” Vincent said, standing. “It was a pleasure running into you.”

 

“You, too!” Ada stood and waved automatically, a gesture that seemed silly when he was three feet away. “Say hi to Gil for me.”

 

“I will.” Vincent said goodbye and headed off in the opposite direction. Even with the sound of kids playing behind Ada—one of the mothers was saying it was about time to go, and wails met her decree—the park around her seemed so quiet.

 

Vincent Nightray was interesting, Ada decided. She didn’t think he was a bad person, but there had been something guarded about his behavior during their visit. It was like talking to someone who was in on a secret she wasn’t and kept talking in circles around it, drawing attention to the secret without divulging it.

 

For a moment, though, just there when he was talking about Gil, there had been a kindness about him. A softness in his eyes, a genuine smile on his face—Ada was sure of it. She only wished Vincent could have been so open their whole conversation. Maybe it was just difficult for him to open up to someone who was practically a stranger.

 

Then again, she hadn’t even noticed him passing by. Vincent didn’t have to stop to acknowledge her, or sit with her on the bench, or talk. He could have just as easily blown by her on his way to meet Gil. Curiouser and curiouser.


	11. Chapter 11

There was something surreal about seeing Vince walk through the door. Even though Vince was arriving early, too, Gil had already had two cups of coffee. When was the last time they’d seen each other? When was the last time they’d had dinner together in this town?

 

Gil had been careful to pick a restaurant Elliot didn’t like. He’d already be upset when he inevitably heard they’d gotten together without him. Gil sighed, his fingers itching for a cigarette. Before he and Oz headed back, he’d have to set aside some time for his brother.

 

“I knew you’d be early,” Vince said, sliding into the seat across from him at the little table in the back. “My, when was the last time we came here?”

 

Gil made a sound of consideration. “Before you went to school?”

 

“Before either of us went to college,” Vince corrected in a lilting voice. Gil masked his groan with a stretch. It certainly didn’t feel like it had been that long since he’d seen Vince, not when that same overexcitement masked that same self-deprecating guilt trip.

 

“Wow, that long?” Gil asked, miming surprise. Vince gave him a knowing look, but the smile never left his lips.

 

“Well, it’s nice to be together again.” The waitress came by to take their orders. Gil pointed out a soup and sandwich combo he’d picked on the specials list long before Vince had arrived. Without even a glance at the menu, Vince ordered the same thing. “I would have been here sooner, but I ran into someone on the way here.”

 

It was rare that Vince really took Gil by surprise, but he’d never been one to stop and talk to friends. “Who was that?”

 

“Ada Vessalius.”

 

Gil leaned back in his seat, drumming his fingers against his knees. “You bumped into her on the way here? She does seem like a friendly girl. Did she remember you from the other night?”

 

“She did. I was the one who stopped her, though.” Quirking an eyebrow, Vince added, “A friend of yours is a friend of mine, after all.”

 

That was certainly a new perspective. Gil had vivid memories of their childhood when Vince would shove Elliot off his lap during story time.

 

“Well, she’d probably be a good friend for you, actually. She’s Oz’s sister.”

 

“Your…roommate?”

 

Gil frowned at the hint of disdain in Vince’s voice. “That’s right. We should all do something together before we leave.”

 

Vince leaned forward. “When is that?”

 

“When Oz decides to go, I guess.” They’d taken a day trip back to the apartment to pick up more things for their stay, but Oz hadn’t said anything else about when they’d head home. He wanted to see Ada perform… “After Amateur Night, maybe?”

 

“Why Amateur Night?” Vince’s stare didn’t waver, even when the waitress returned with their food. Gil had to tell her they were all set when she asked if there was anything else she could get them.

 

“He’s hoping to see Ada perform on stage. That’s why we swung by the club the other night.” Gil glanced up from his sandwich to gauge Vince’s response. He looked mildly annoyed, stirring his soup with his spoon.

 

“I’m still surprised you agreed to let an underage patron in. That’s not like you at all. Besides that, I’m not sure she has the stage presence.”

 

As much as Gil wanted to bristle in her defense, the same thought had crossed his mind. He told Vince so. “She does have a great voice, though, and I get the sense that her not having stage presence has more to do with inexperience than lack of potential.”

 

Vince finally took a spoonful of soup. His mismatched eyes had never bothered Gil, probably because he’d seen them his whole life; they also gave away whatever emotions Vince was trying to hide in his voice and posture. Gil could read that skepticism from a mile away.

 

While Gil polished off his sandwich, Vince seemed to collect his thoughts. “You seem intent on intervening on her behalf. You hardly know her more than I do.”

 

“Well, I’ve gotten to know her better just from staying with the Vessaliuses the past week or so. Besides that, I feel like I know her well from Oz’s stories. He’s really proud of her.” Gil chuckled.

 

“Do you tell him stories about your siblings?” Vince asked. His tone was light, but even if Gil weren’t an expert at Vince’s thought process he’d be able to decode that one: _Do you talk about me?_

A memory of a much younger Vince asking if Gil wanted to play with him flashed across his memory. The soft pleas for Gil’s attention, the disproportionate joy when they were granted. This, too, hadn’t changed about his little brother. Crossing his arms on the edge of the table, Gil leaned forward and smiled. “All the time.”

 

Vince took another few spoonsful of soup and snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure you tell him all about how smart and talented Elliot is,” he said, but there was no bitterness in his voice. “So…what song do you think Ada Vessalius will perform for us?”


	12. Chapter 12

Before leaving for school, Elliot ducked down into the deserted club for sheet music. This had become somewhat routine over the past few years, but not even Leo knew that he liked coming here for new material.

 

Every Nightray had some experience with instruments; Father insisted that his children be musically competent, even if the Baskervilles were the only ones playing on stage. Fred had studied the trumpet, Claude the bass, Ernest the saxophone, Vanessa the clarinet, and Elliot the piano. Gil and Vincent had been offered the same opportunity to study when they joined the family, but Gil was hopeless at every instrument he tried, and Vincent had opted to branch out into a different part of the music business.

 

Of his siblings, Elliot was the only one who practiced regularly anymore. Vanessa on more than one occasion had sniffed that it was because he was still in high school. “Once you become an adult, it’s harder to fit playing an instrument into your daily life.”

 

As Elliot made his way across the club towards the stage, he wondered, not for the first time, how his siblings had been able to let their playing fall to the side so easily in adulthood. Ernest would break out his saxophone every once in a while, but by and large, the elder Nightray siblings focused on other fields: accounting, drafting contracts, organized management. Fred and Claude were already in agreement that they would run the business side of the club together, while Ernest and Vanessa would manage the talent.

 

“Any more would spread the workload too thin,” Fred had announced within earshot of his youngest sibling. Elliot thought it interesting that it took four heirs to do what his father currently did alone.

 

Oswald kept his sheet music in the hollow space inside his bench. Elliot lifted up the seat and found hundreds of songs meticulously organized by title. He flipped through the sheet music, taking care not to move too quickly and give himself a papercut; he’d had more than one close call with bleeding on Oswald’s music.

 

Usually he’d just take one or two at a time that would go unnoticed, practice them in secret, then return them once he had them memorized. At this point, though, Oswald had most of his music memorized. He only needed sheet music for the newest pieces or the occasional obscure tune at a patron’s request. Elliot plucked titles generously: Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Ethel Merman.

 

Some of these songs he’d never played before, and others he was sure he was rusty on. It had been a long time since he pulled a title with vocals. There were only a handful of those that he’d really mastered. As he fluffed out the sheet music still in the bench, covering the gaps of the songs he’d taken, his fingers hesitated over the spot “At Last” had occupied.

 

With a casual swipe of his finger, he drew back the next song in line. “As Time Goes By.” He’d learned it by heart a long time ago, and it had only been by chance that it popped into his head the other day during his free period. It was missing the usual up-tempo swing Elliot most enjoyed, and it was nothing if not overplayed, but he still liked performing it.

 

As a child, he’d insisted on studying music that was unlike anything the Baskervilles played downstairs. Classically trained was his goal. Yet here he was sneaking around his own home, pulling music that had been played a thousand times on this very stage. Leo wouldn’t waste any time telling him what an idiot he was.

 

Elliot fluffed out the “A” songs and held his collection of sheet music in one hand while closing the bench with the other.

 

During his free period, Elliot all but took the stairs two at a time. Sandwiched between Classics and Political Theory, the forty minutes of freedom were the ultimate reprieve. While he sat down at the bench, Leo hovered behind him in the doorway. Beneath the rustle of sheet music, Elliot could hear Leo catching his breath, and if he turned quickly enough, he’d see the split-second blur of motion as Leo straightened his shoulders.

 

Why Leo bothered hiding that he was out of breath was beyond Elliot; it was no secret that Leo wasn’t in any way athletic. Then again, he thought with a hint of guilt, he never exactly slowed down on the stairs for Leo. Tomorrow. He would climb more slowly tomorrow.

 

Leo pulled out a book and sat in the parlor chair across from the piano. Before he had a chance to open to whatever page he’d left off on, Elliot blurted out, “You don’t have to stay, you know.”

 

At that, Leo looked up. His glasses and mop of hair hid his expression. “What?”

 

“If you don’t want to stay, you don’t have to. It must be boring for you to listen to me practice.” The longer Elliot rambled, the more he regretted opening his mouth. Leo’s lips had formed a hard line, his grip on his hardcover tightening.

 

“You don’t want me here.” It didn’t even come out as a question, just a sheet of ice.

 

“I didn’t say that,” Elliot protested. “I just don’t want you to be bored, or unable to enjoy your boo—”

 

“I can enjoy my book just _fine._ Just like the countless books I’ve read in here before. What, all of a sudden my presence bothers you?”

 

“I didn’t _say that_. Quit twisting my words around!”

 

“I’m not twisting anything, just repeating what you said. I don’t have to stay, you know.” Leo pitched his voice up to a nasally whine for the last part. Elliot’s ears burned.

 

“I don’t sound like that! And that’s not how I said it, and you know it.”

 

Leo was on his feet and standing over Elliot in a blink. It was disorienting, having his smaller friend glaring down at him. “Why do you want me out?”

 

“I don’t want you out,” Elliot snapped. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated to stay.”

 

“When have I ever indicated that this was an obligation?” The previous explosiveness in Leo’s tone had dropped to a dangerous quiet. Even with his irritation rising, Elliot knew he was one wrong word from having at best a book and at worst his own piano bench flung at him.

 

“When you hide in the doorway gasping for breath after coming up the stairs.”

 

The fist that connected with his face told him that had been a whole sentence of wrong words. Leo scoffed and turned on his heel to return to his parlor chair. He curled up on the stiff cushion and opened his latest read to his bookmarked page.

 

“Idiot.”

 

Apparently, that was all there was to be said on the matter. Elliot hesitated on the bench, rubbing his aching cheek and watching for any sign of a follow-up. When Leo continued to ignore him, turning pages in his book, Elliot faced the piano.

 

He ran a few bars of warmup scales. Truth be told, he was a little worried that Leo might tease him if he heard the all-jazz lineup for today’s practice. Maybe he should forego the full forty minutes and just stick with slipping one or two jazz pieces in like he usually did. Glancing over his shoulder and seeing that Leo was still reading, Elliot decided to test the waters.

 

Within the first bar of “As Time Goes By,” Elliot caught movement in his peripheral vision. He focused on the keys and the melody, even closing his eyes for the chorus. Leo didn’t sing, but Elliot also noted the absence of the sound of pages turning. When he’d finished the piece, he forced himself to wait a moment before looking over his shoulder.

 

Leo was smiling wryly at him, and Elliot knew his peace offering had gotten through.

 

He was just about to start his next piece when the sound of approaching footsteps caught his attention. Ada appeared in the doorway, a triumphant gleam in her eye.

 

“I knew I’d find you here,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. Her expression reminded Elliot of her brother, and he scowled reflexively.

 

“Because we’re here at this time every day?” Leo asked brightly. Elliot scowled even more deeply. He recognized that particular tone of sweetness; Ada’s arrival had undone his work to improve Leo’s mood.

 

“What do you want?” he asked her.

 

“To practice,” she said, either not recognizing or ignoring the unspoken _get out_ Elliot had thrown into his voice. She held up an open notebook that appeared to have a list written on it, though Elliot couldn’t read it from across the room. “I wrote down some of my favorites to ask you which song you think would be best for the open mic night.”

 

“You had to bother us for _that_?” Elliot asked. Ada turned her whole body when her eyes flew from Elliot to Leo, and, instinctively following the over-the-top movement, Elliot glanced over as well. Leo was giving him a funny look, but then he adjusted his glasses, obstructing his eyes.

 

“I’m really sorry,” Ada said, and there was something odd about her expression, too. Elliot could feel his annoyance rising. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything—”

 

“You didn’t,” Leo said. He’d completely calmed himself into his usual demeanor, which only aggravated Elliot more. “Why don’t you show us your list.”

 

Ada approached step by step, eyeing Elliot cautiously. He watched for a few agonizing seconds as she crossed the room at her glacial speed.

 

“Do you want to show us the damn thing or not?” he snapped. With a squeak, Ada skittered over and stood awkwardly between the piano bench and the parlor chair. With a sigh, Elliot shifted over so she could sit on the bench.

 

Ada’s skirt fluffed out on the bench when she sat. She rested the notebook on her lap and ran her finger down the list, which, now that Elliot was close enough to see it, was quite extensive. “I picked ones by female artists, mostly, with a few traditionally sung by men. Is that okay? I’m not sure how many opposite-gender covers Nightray’s does. It’s a lot of stuff from the forties. What do you think? And a lot of Billie Holiday. I really love Billie Holiday, but she’s so popular. Who doesn’t know her music? Is it too cliché? Elliot, what do you think?”

 

“I think you could stand to stop talking for half a second,” he said. Ada cartoonishly snapped her mouth shut. Over her shoulder, Elliot could see Leo shaking his head. He took a slow breath. “Listen. Knock it off, okay? You don’t need my permission on every single thing you do. I don’t care what you sing, nobody cares what you sing, pick whatever you like.”

 

Ada pointed to the first song on her list. “Then it has to be ‘I’ll Be Seeing You.’”

 

“‘I’ll Be Seeing You,’” Elliot repeated, reaching into his bag on the floor. Leo and Ada both watched with interest as he rummaged around, trying not to meet their curious gazes, and pulled out his sheet music. “Fine. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

 

“You have it with you?” Ada clapped her hands together with an undignified squeal. “Oh, Elliot, it’s a sign!”

 

“It’s not a sign, it’s a famous song! And don’t look at me like that, it’s _fine_. If you only get one shot to be up on stage, you have to sing what you want.” Elliot could sense a headache coming on. “Let’s get this over with.”

 

Ada stood and brushed off her skirt, taking a deep breath and humming softly to herself. Elliot put the sheet music up on the piano. Leo hadn’t said anything, but Ada was standing in Elliot’s way; if he wanted to see Leo, he’d have to lean and draw attention to himself.

 

The beginning notes of the song gave Elliot a little freedom to play around with the keys, and then he moved right into the delicate piano. He struck out the song’s only distinct chord, the cue for vocals, and Ada didn’t miss a beat.

 

“I’ll be seeing you in all the old fa-mil-iar places,” she sang. “That this heart of mine embraces all day through.”

 

It was funny, Elliot thought as he followed the notes penned on the sheet music in front of him. Ada certainly wasn’t trying to sound like Billie Holiday, but her delivery felt true to the original track. The way her voice rose and dropped over the lyrics, it was obvious she’d been singing this song for a long time. When he glanced up, he could see that her eyes were closed, her hands folded over her heart. He turned back to play the last few bars.

 

“I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you,” Ada finished.  At the bottom of the sheet music where the notes ended, Oswald’s spindly handwriting read _freestyle_. Elliot had heard him play this song before, using that last held note to instead swing up and down the keys. The song was plain on piano, its intro and ending the only points for the pianist to show off a little.

 

Elliot played the traditional closing chord instead.

 

The final note hung in the practice room. When Elliot looked up, Ada was practically bouncing up and down. “That sounded so good, Elliot! Have you been practicing that song?”

 

“No, it’s just easy to play.” It was harder to maintain anger in his voice when responding to a compliment. Elliot hoped his accompanying glare was picking up the slack. Ada smiled expectantly at him. “I can see why you picked that song. You’ve practiced it a lot already.”

 

“It’s my favorite.”

 

“Well, you should be in good shape for the open mic. All you have to focus on is your stage presence, really.” Elliot crossed his arms. Truth be told, he was impressed at how powerful Ada’s voice was. He had expected her voice to crack hitting a high or low note, but she clearly knew what she was doing. “For starters, stop jumping up and down.”

 

Ada planted her feet on the carpeted floor almost audibly. She didn’t even seem the slightest bit put out. Elliot rubbed his temple.

 

“Leo, what do you think?” he asked, looking over. Leo was standing, packing his book into his bag. With a start, Elliot checked the clock, but they still had more than twenty minutes until the free period was up. “Leo?”

 

“Sounds great.” Leo’s clipped voice wasn’t particularly reassuring. “I’m going to go to the library. I can’t really concentrate on my book with the music.”

 

“Oh, you don’t have to go—” Ada started as Leo brushed past her on his way out.

 

“Leo!” Elliot called from the piano bench, unsurprised when Leo didn’t even break stride. Exhaling with frustration, he got to his feet and followed. “Leo!”

 

“You have to practice. I don’t have to be here.” Leo’s glare from the doorway challenged Elliot to argue. “Though I don’t think Ada really needs your help, either.”

 

Elliot wasn’t sure if the insult made him freeze up out of anger or hurt, but he didn’t follow when Leo disappeared from the room. He heard Ada come up behind him.

 

“I’m really sorry, Elliot. I didn’t mean to barge in and ruin your free period.” From the drop in her voice, Elliot thought Ada sounded sadder than he did about Leo storming out.

 

“Yeah, well, it’s not you he’s mad at.” Elliot went back to the piano to pack up his things. “You just need to focus on performing in front of a crowd. I don’t know how exactly you’re going to work your way up to the stage in a week, but whatever. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

 

“I really do appreciate your help, you know.”

 

“I’m not helping _you_ ,” Elliot muttered. Ada’s apologetic whimpering kept a comfortable level of annoyance in the back of his mind while he tried to figure out whether he was supposed to follow Leo to the library or not. Why was he so freaking touchy today? On his way out Elliot added, “Aren’t you a third-year? Don’t you have class now?”

 

Ada was saying something about taking a photography class during the upperclassmen free period, but Elliot was already past her.


	13. Chapter 13

Ada checked the clock, her watch, and the clock again, and the times matched up. It was definitely her break period. Yet as she looked around the music room, there was no sign of Elliot or Leo. Not a single book or bag to suggest they’d arrived. At first she thought she’d wait a few minutes and they’d be right along, but it was closing on ten minutes into the break period, and still nothing.

 

Guilt clawed at her chest. This was her fault, Ada knew. She’d forced herself into their free period and spoiled everything. Not only had she interrupted Elliot’s practice to play a song she wanted, she’d wedged herself right between the two of them and made Leo feel unwelcome. What a horrible mistake it had been to barge in like that!

 

With a soft sigh, Ada put down her book bag on Leo’s empty chair and wandered past the piano to the window. She’d told Elliot it was a sign that he had the sheet music for her favorite jazz song, but maybe this was the real sign: stay out of other people’s business, Ada, there’s no room for you here. This is not for you.

 

She resisted the urge to lean her forehead right against the window glass. Her fingers toyed with the lace stitched along the edges of the drapes, and she looked down into the courtyard below. There were quite a few music rooms at Lutwidge, but this one was the nicest, a corner room with wide windows; sunlight streamed in, and there was a beautiful view of the campus. If she hadn’t heard Elliot play, she would have been shocked to find out a first year had laid any sort of claim to this room.

 

Ada looked down at the trees, the benches, and the perfectly manicured lawn. Students milled about, seeming to enjoy taking their free period outside in the nice weather. Soon they’d be studying for their finals.

 

In fact, if Ada wasn’t mistaken, a student sitting off by himself under the tree was engrossed in a textbook. She wished she had that kind of dedication, she thought, as she watched him turn a page. Wait a minute.

 

Lighting up, Ada tore from the music room, grabbing her bag as she went. She took the stairs two at a time racing down to the courtyard and burst through the doors leading outside. Sure enough, from the ground level, she could see Elliot sitting on the bench placed right under the tree, his nose in a mathematics book.

 

“Elliot!” she called out. His head snapped up, his eyebrows and mouth twisted in that perpetual grumpiness Ada had come to associate with him. As soon as she stepped off the path from the door and onto the grass, he stood up, shoving his book unceremoniously into his bag. “Elliot, wait!”

 

He turned on his heel and stormed away from her. Ada hesitated for only a split second before hurrying after him.

 

“Elliot!” she called again. His head whipped around to look at her over his shoulder, then he faced forward and picked up the pace. Two years younger than she was but with much longer legs, he pulled farther ahead. Was he trying to ditch her? Disproportionate outrage surged through Ada. “Elliot!”

 

They were through the courtyard now, passing under the archway that led to a paved pathway around the perimeter of the campus. Once Ada rounded the archway, she threw her bag onto the grass and ran after him. Likely alerted by the soles of her shoes clacking against the pavement, Elliot looked back and squawked.

 

“Stop following me!” he yelled, tossing his bag aside and running himself.

 

“You can’t just run away from me, Elliot!” Ada shouted back. “We need to talk!”

 

“No, we don’t!”

 

Ada wondered fleetingly if they had attracted the attention of other students around the campus. This was getting silly, and these shoes were not made for running. They made it all the way around the perimeter. Elliot’s mistake was going back for his bag. He ran ahead to pick it up out of the grass and doubled back to the entrance into the courtyard. He just barely made it through before Ada caught up to him. She skidded against the archway and yelled again, “Elliot, you get back here!”

 

As if by magic, Elliot tripped and fell onto the grassy hill face-first. Ada resisted the urge to jump onto his back and pin him to the ground the way Oz used to hold her down when they were roughhousing as kids, and settled for crouching beside him and grabbing the back of his jacket.

 

“Are you ready to use your words like a civilized adult?” she asked, barely able to keep a straight face. Elliot turned his head to the side to glare at her over his shoulder.

 

“You know, most normal people wouldn’t chase after someone who clearly doesn’t want to see them.”

 

“Normal is boring.” Ada had seen that in a magazine somewhere. “Honestly, Elliot. I was worried when you two didn’t show earlier.”

 

Below the fabric Ada had clenched triumphantly in her fist, she could feel Elliot’s shoulder blades tense.

 

“I don’t have time for jazz,” he said. “Finals are coming up, and I need to study. You don’t need my help anyway.”

 

“But I do, Elliot. You _and_ Leo. You guys are my friends!” Ada pretended not to hear the muttered stream of dispute. “We’re a team.”

 

“How in the hell did you come to _that_ conclusion?”

 

“Because it’s true. Couldn’t you tell, Elliot? When we were practicing the other day, it was like the three of us were a trio.” The more she talked, the truer the words sounded in Ada’s ears. “At least, that’s what it felt like to me. You and Leo always look so comfortable together when you’re playing and he’s reading.” Her grip on the back of his jacket loosened. “Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I want to be a part of that. I close my eyes, and I can see it—you playing, me singing, Leo curled up with a book.”

 

“Leo’s not just there to read, you know.” Ada had expected a sharp rebuttal, but not on this particular point. Elliot shifted his shoulders to push off her hand and propped himself up onto his elbows, wiping dirt from his face with his hands. “He plays piano, too.”

 

Ada was quiet for a moment, then leaned forward and whispered, “Elliot, were the rumors Uncle Oscar told me true? About that Baskerville prodigy. It’s Leo, isn’t it?”

 

To her surprise, Elliot gave her a little smile. “Took you that long to figure it out?” A shadow crossed his face then, and Ada bit her tongue to resist prying further.

 

“Are you guys okay?” Not her smoothest transition, but Ada wanted to get to the important part. Elliot shot her a look. “I’m really sorry. It’s my fault you’re fighting.”

 

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s my fault. It usually is.” Elliot blew some air out the side of his mouth. “Don’t try martyring yourself over this. I don’t have time for that.”

 

Ada laughed. He could have just said she didn’t have to worry.

 

“Leo’s an amazing pianist,” Elliot continued. “He doesn’t even have to practice, the bastard. My family’s been dying to get him onstage. He’d put Oswald to shame for sure.”

 

It was kind of cute to see Elliot boasting on his friend’s behalf, Ada thought. She wished Leo were here to hear what nice things Elliot had to say about him.

 

“I’m kind of glad he doesn’t play at the club,” Elliot said. “The others dropped out of school to focus on their music.”

 

“Do you think he will someday?”

 

Elliot didn’t answer, his mouth a tight line. Ada switched tactics.

 

“Is that something _you’d_ like to do one day, Elliot? Play professionally?”

 

He snorted. “Yeah, sure, with all my connections. I’ll borrow Oswald’s piano and my father’s customers, and then I’ll get Vince to represent me.”

 

Ada started. “Vince?”

 

“My brother Vincent. I think you met him the other night.” Elliot gave her a curious look. “He’s a talent agent. Wasn’t really into making music, so he decided to pursue it from a different angle.” The bell rang, signaling the end of the free period, and Elliot heaved a sigh. “I was hoping to get something accomplished today, but I guess not.”

 

He pushed himself up onto his knees and rolled back his shoulders. Ada sat frozen beside him. It wasn’t possible. Vincent was the agent Oz wanted her to perform for? How on earth could she get up on stage and sing in front of him? After all the foolish things she’d said to him!

 

Elliot picked up a book at his feet with a puzzled expression on his face. “This is what I…? Who left this lying out on the pathway like that?”

 

“Excuse me,” Ada said, stumbling to her feet. She raced for the door back into the school.


	14. Chapter 14

Leo felt Ada’s presence before he looked up from his book. Well. Had the book tugged away from his face.

 

“Why aren’t you with Elliot?” was her version of a greeting, and Leo’s fingers twitched with irritation. Ada had grabbed the book from the top, her fingers crinkling the pages upward, palm flat against the spine and cracking it too far open. The pages would fall out if she kept that up. He moved to snatch the book back from her and she held it up out of his reach. Anger flooded through him so quickly he nearly shook.

 

“Why aren’t you minding your own business and ruining your own books?” Leo shot back, and Ada squeaked in surprise, her grip on his book loosening. Leo took the opportunity to scoop it back into his hands, put in his bookmark, and close it. He ran his hand down the spine. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

 

Her shoulders hunched. “Well. I saw you coming out of the library and wanted to talk to you.” Ada Vessalius skipping class? Leo snorted at the guilt in her expression. “Besides! You’re not in class either.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, what are youdoing out of class?” Triumph gleamed in her eyes. Honestly.

 

“Isn’t that the question,” he said, keeping his voice light.

 

After a few moments of silence, Ada crossed her arms. “I told you why _I’m_ here.”

 

“You volunteered that information without prompting. I owe you nothing.”

 

While Ada stammered, likely trying to figure out how exactly she lost that argument, Leo stood up. He’d missed the familiarity of the music room for reading during his break period, and with the exact same schedule as Elliot, he’d had to pointedly ignore attempts to get his attention all day. Nobody had a free period right after lunch, so Leo had come here instead of suffering through mathematics, where he sat directly next to Elliot. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Ada was still sticking her nose into this, but he really didn’t have the energy for it.

 

He was almost to the door when Ada spoke. “You’re avoiding Elliot, aren’t you?”

 

Against his will, he hesitated at the door. When he heard Ada suck in a breath to keep talking, Leo suppressed a groan.

 

Her voice came closer the next time; the carpet must have muffled her approaching footsteps. “You’re embarrassed because you know you were in the wrong on that fight. So Elliot’s agonizing over a mistake he didn’t mean to make, or didn’t really make at all, but you’re too proud to apologize.”

 

“Have you ever thought that the reason you spend your spare time bothering us and not with friends your own age has something to do with your inability to keep out of other people’s business?” It was a knee-jerk reaction, and Leo felt the spike of regret even as he was saying the words, but Ada had hit too close to home. How on earth had she picked up all of that from seeing the two-minute preamble to the real fight he and Elliot had after leaving the music room?

 

“Don’t let pride get in the way of your friendship, Leo!” Ada said. Leo turned to face her, and she was only a few feet away from him now. She leaned towards him. “You and Elliot are too good a team to split up over a silly fight.”

 

The fact that Ada thought this was the worst fight he and Elliot had ever had nearly made Leo laugh aloud. He pressed his lips together to keep from making another scathing comment; already he’d wasted too much energy trying to get Ada to back off, and he still had another period after this to deal with Elliot.

 

As if she were reading his mind, Ada’s eyes softened. “You should have heard him talking about you earlier, Leo. Elliot thinks you’re great. He feels really bad.”

 

“I know what Elliot thinks of me, and I know that he didn’t send you here on his behalf. Elliot speaks for himself.”

 

If he thought that was going to quiet her, he was wrong. A smile split her face. “You see! You think highly of Elliot, too.”

 

The ebbing wave of aggravation rushed back to the shore. “I don’t need you telling me what I think. I’m inside my own head, you know.”

 

The bell rang to signal the next period. Ada closed the space between them and grabbed his arm. “Let’s go find Elliot now, and you can make up,” she said.

 

“That’s not something for you to decide,” Leo said through gritted teeth. Ada was taller than he was, though, and deceptively strong. He found himself stumbling after her down the hall. “Do you even know where you’re going?”

 

“Just following my gut!” she told him. Her gut apparently didn’t go up long staircases.

 

It took them a surprisingly short time to cross paths with Elliot. Leo spotted him a split-second before Ada let out a triumphant _A-ha!_ and a full three seconds before Elliot saw them. Unsurprisingly, he came charging over as soon as he did. Leo tensed.

 

“Elliot!” Ada waved with the hand that wasn’t wrapped like a vice around Leo’s arm. Elliot ignored her completely, his attention singular as ever. Leo had a sudden vision of Elliot’s grabbing his other arm and pulling him away from Ada like a wishbone. Instead, Elliot brandished a book.

 

“Look familiar?” Elliot asked, only a hint of sharpness in his voice. Leo bit his inside cheek. An hour or so earlier, he’d settled onto a grassy patch in the courtyard to read the very book now in Elliot’s hand.

 

The shouting had given them away, the two idiots, and when they burst into the courtyard, Leo reacted without thinking. He’d tossed the book inelegantly in Elliot’s way, knowing he wouldn’t be looking where he was going. By some miraculous lack of athleticism, Leo managed to throw it right at Elliot’s feet. His graceless tumble gave Leo just enough time to escape the vicinity before Elliot realized who’d felled him.

 

“I checked in with the librarian to see who had taken this book out.” Elliot leaned forward, his eyes just barely not crossing as they stayed fixated on Leo. “Amazing thing, library records.”

 

He’d done his homework. There was no point in denying it, then. “You had it coming.”

 

“Why?” Elliot thrust the book into Leo’s hand. He struggled to get a good grip on it—Ada still hadn’t relinquished his other arm—but managed to keep the book from falling to the floor or cracking its spine. “What did I do that deserves punishment?”

 

 _Deserves._ There was something about that word choice that made Leo look down, unable to help breaking Elliot’s gaze. A present-tense verb—still being punished. Deserve—punishment that had been earned.

 

Leo hated it when Elliot did this.

 

“You were running away like a coward,” he snapped back, catching the book by just the edges and shoving it back up into Elliot’s face. Behind the cover, he could just see Elliot’s chin jut back, could hear the quiet groan of pain at contact.

 

“Leo!” Ada let go of his arm long enough to give it a good smack, and Leo nearly lost his balance. A steady hand grabbed his other elbow to keep him upright. Overriding his instinct to ease into the support, Leo jerked himself out of Elliot’s reach.

 

“This isn’t the time or place for this conversation,” he said, taking a deep breath in an attempt to compose himself. Students were rushing by, often bumping them in a way that didn’t seem accidental. The hallway was most certainly not the place for this fight, and who did Ada Vessalius think she was getting involved?

 

“Well, you won’t talk to me anywhere else,” Elliot said, his volume, as always, louder than necessary.

 

“Interesting conclusion you came to, that if someone won’t talk to you, you yell in the middle of a crowded hallway—”

 

A sharp pain along the shell of his ear interrupted Leo’s rebuttal. Ada was pinching it between her index finger and thumb and had Elliot in a similar hold.  She yanked both of them at once, so hard the boys nearly smacked heads.

 

“For goodness sake, you two!” Ada heaved a sigh. “All those stereotypes about how high school _girls_ cause drama.”

 

Not letting go of their ears, she pulled them into the nearest empty classroom, out of the way of the students rushing through the hallways. Elliot let out a steady stream of protest, but Leo walked alongside Ada as much as possible, easing the pain in his ear. The less tugging involved, the better.

 

Even inside the empty classroom, her hold didn’t let up. Leo felt Ada tug his ear up and down, and his head bobbed with the motion. In a somewhat deeper voice, she spoke over Elliot. “I’m sorry for getting mad yesterday and not talking out the problem with you, Elliot.” She stopped moving Leo’s head and shifted the motion over to Elliot. In an even deeper voice, she continued, “That’s all right, Leo. I’m sorry for getting unreasonably angry and yelling. You’re my best friend.” Leo felt his ear being tugged again as Ada returned to the original slightly-deeper voice for, “Don’t worry about it, Elliot. You’re my best friend, too.”

 

Elliot slapped her hand away from his ear finally and jerked away. “What in the _hell_ are you doing?”

 

“Teaching you two how to resolve conflict!” Ada replied, putting her hands on her hips and blessedly releasing Leo’s ear in the process. Instinctively, he reached up to rub the sore spot. Elliot’s eyes flickered over to him. “Today has been ridiculous! Neither of you show up in the music room for your free period, and here I was blaming myself—but you two are just so…so stupid! I go to see Elliot, and I have to chase you and practically sit on you to make you talk about how talented Leo is and how glad you are he didn’t drop out of school to play piano because you’d miss him too much—”

 

Elliot squawked in protest, his whole face flushing. “I didn’t say _that!_ ”

 

“Well, you meant it, so be quiet. And Leo—” The mention of his name wiped away the smirk Leo had been directing at Elliot. “You say stuff like how Elliot speaks for himself, and you guys really get each other, but then you’re all difficult like this. Isn’t it exhausting being angry when you really want to be friends again?”

 

The agitation in Elliot’s expression turned to befuddlement. “What—we’re still friends. Just because of a little fight doesn’t mean we’re not friends anymore.”

 

“ _Little_ fight?” Ada echoed.

 

“Yeah. I mean, I just…said the wrong thing?” Elliot glanced over at Leo, his guilt as easy to read as ever. “D… _did_ the wrong thing…?”

 

“None of the above?” Ada prompted.

 

They were both looking at him, and Leo didn’t exactly feel like getting into it. Maybe he had gone a little overboard, but it wasn’t like Elliot had done just one thing to bother him. Suddenly playing more jazz, not wanting Leo in the music room while he was playing, letting Ada in with halfhearted complaint…Leo wasn’t an idiot. That same anger bubbled under his skin.

 

“If you want to play jazz, fine,” he said to Elliot, who started. “I get it. It’s not like I don’t know. All this time it’s been classical this, and not-like-Nightray’s that, but you love it. I’m actually happy to see you playing what you want. What really ticks me off is—”

 

What, exactly? That it wasn’t him who inspired Elliot to play what he wanted? That his silent support hadn’t been louder than Ada’s spoken praise? Stupid. Yet here Elliot was, hanging on his every word, dying to know what he did wrong. _You didn’t pick me_ —what were they, children?

 

“You’re letting yourself be a background player,” he finished lamely. Elliot’s eyebrows knitted.

 

“What?” he asked, the syllable slurring with confusion.

 

“You’re finally playing what you want, and it’s a backup position.” Leo was starting to pick up speed on the route he’d chosen. “You didn’t even play the freestyle at the end of ‘I’ll Be Seeing You.’ You’re making it all about _her_.” A little more venom than he wanted on the last word, but Leo thought he’d done well.

 

In his peripheral vision, he could see Ada crumple into herself. “So it _was_ my fault.” The whisper of defeat wasn’t as satisfying as Leo would have hoped.

 

Elliot clenched his fists. “ _That’s_ what you’re mad about? That I’m not making it all about me and my piano playing?”

 

Hmm. Put that way, it wasn’t any better than the actual childish reasoning.

 

“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” Elliot said, still bristling. “Especially since you’re an even bigger background player than I am!”

 

“I’m _what_?”

 

“It’s true.” Elliot pointed for emphasis, and Leo rolled his eyes. “You’re an amazing pianist, and we both know it. You could play for Nightray’s right now, you’re so good, and you let me hold you back all the time.”

 

“Hold me back?” Leo echoed, fingers itching for something to throw at Elliot’s stupid face. He regretted playing the library book too soon. “I’m not hiding in the background, I just don’t want to play for Nightray’s.”

 

“For now,” Elliot said.

 

“No, not for now. Forever. I _never_ want to play for Nightray’s!”

 

Every fiber of rage in Elliot’s face faded into hurt. “You don’t want to play for Nightray’s?”

 

“No. I don’t.”

 

“Ever?”

 

“Ever.”

 

“Why not?” Elliot asked. Leo clamped his mouth shut.

 

“Are you going to play for Nightray’s, Elliot?” Ada asked.

 

Both boys turned to look at her. She sat on the desk nearest her and folded her hands in her lap. Even if Leo could still sense her worry, she seemed to have composed herself.

 

“No, I wouldn’t play for Nightray’s. It wouldn’t be ethical to perform for my own family’s club,” Elliot said. “What does that have to do with—”

 

“So, you’ll work on the business side of it?” she pressed. Elliot studied the floor.

 

“My siblings will take over the club,” he said. Leo’s fingers twitched. “I’m not really sure what I’ll do.”

 

“Well, there you go,” Ada said, a little smile playing on her lips. “Leo isn’t going to play for a club without you, Elliot!”

 

“Would you stop putting words into other people’s mouths?” Leo said.

 

“Well, there’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Elliot muttered.

 

“So here’s what you’re going to do, Elliot!” Ada said, clapping her hands once and hopping off the desk. She threw an arm around each of them and pulled them closer. A group hug, Leo realized belatedly, the top of his head uncomfortably trapped between Ada’s chin and Elliot’s collarbone. “You and Leo are going to make up and be friends, you’re both going to play all the piano you want together, and when we graduate, the three of us are opening our own jazz club.”

 

Silence overtook the classroom. Finally, Elliot barked out a laugh. “Oh, it’s that easy, is it?”

 

“Yes,” Ada said.

 

“What about Nightray’s?” Leo asked.

 

“We’ll put them out of business,” Ada said without hesitation. Then, in a guiltier tone, added, “Or just be really healthy, friendly competition. Like, we’ll be business rivals, but still be friends.” Elliot and Leo snorted their laughter.

 

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing to outdo my siblings when they take over,” Elliot allowed carefully. Leo looked up so quickly he smacked his head on Ada’s jaw.

 

“So, you’ll play? You’ll…quit being a backup performer?”

 

Elliot’s expression turned shrewd. “Playing a song traditionally and allowing myself to be overshadowed are different things.” Leo felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. Elliot was growing wiser, now, was he? “I mean, it’s kind of a stupid idea. We’re teenagers and have no idea how to run a club.”

 

“Some ideas,” Leo corrected. “We both come from family businesses.”

 

“And Uncle Oscar can help, too!” Ada added.

 

“…Well.” Elliot’s glance hovered over Ada then fixed on Leo. “I’m in if you’re in.”

 

The smile that hinted to appear stretched across Leo’s whole face. “Hmm…I think I’m in if you’re in.”

 

Ada squealed and squeezed the two of them impossibly closer. “We’re going to run a jazz club! We’ll be the best jazz trio _ever_! You _guys_!”

 

“But first,” Leo said, straining for breath in the crushing bear hug, “we have to blow everyone away at Amateur Night.”

 

Ada froze.

 

“That’s right,” Elliot said. “I almost forgot. Not that you need a lot of practice…I’ll admit it, Vessalius, you’re not bad. We just need to build up your confidence a bit.”

 

“I can’t do it,” Ada said.

 

“See, now do the opposite of that,” Leo said. Ada released her hold on them, and he got a good look at her face. All the color had drained from it.

 

“I’m really sorry,” she said, wringing her hands. “I don’t think I’m going to sing at Amateur Night.”

 


	15. Chapter 15

Focusing on the teacher’s lecture wasn’t an easy task, and not just because it was the first period of the day. Ada’s chest felt heavy. Bonding with Elliot and Leo yesterday afternoon had been so great, and then she’d remembered Amateur Night. There was no way she could perform if Vincent was the talent agent. She got jittery just talking to him, let alone singing in front of him.

 

It killed her to quit; Oz was so excited, and Gil had made sacrifices, and Elliot and Leo were her friends now, and everything was awful. After her awkward exit from the classroom, escaping Elliot and Leo probably on pure shock value, Ada had gone straight home and avoided Oz and Gil. Feigning illness, she hid in her room, wishing she could go up to the attic and be thunder without anyone hearing her.

 

Even without saying aloud that something was wrong, she must have sent out some sort of signal. Uncle Oscar knocked on her door later that night.

 

“There’s my jazz star,” he teased. Ada felt like crying, but she smiled indulgently anyway. “Ready for your big debut tomorrow night?”

 

Ada blinked rapidly. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

 

Uncle Oscar shut the door and came over to sit on the edge of her bed. He held out one arm, and Ada wordlessly curled herself into his warm side. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked softly.

 

“I’m not ready to be on stage.”

 

She felt his jawline shift with a chuckle against the crown of her head. “Well, your talent is more than ready. This isn’t assurance from your favorite uncle, but the unbiased opinion of a lifelong jazz lover and club-goer.” Ada sniffled. “But if this is too much pressure for you, or you don’t want to go on stage, you don’t have to.”

 

“But I’ll let everyone down. Oz really wants me to perform, and Elliot and Leo even helped me practice…it’s not as simple as saying I don’t want to.”

 

“Of course it is, Ada.”

 

She looked up in surprise. Though the words hadn’t been spoken unkindly, there was a finality to them that her uncle rarely used. He offered a smile when their eyes met.

 

“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Your friends who helped you practice…well, that practice is still a good memory, time spent together. Oz will understand. He wants great things for you because you’re his sister—and the most important part of that statement is that you’re his sister. He puts you first. I promise.”

 

Ada wiped her eyes with the edges of her sleeves. Uncle Oscar was right, of course. She knew that her brother would understand, but it still felt like letting him down. He’d been so excited. She could practically see his bags packed at the door.

 

“Hearing you say that it’s okay if I don’t makes me want to do it more,” Ada said, giggling through the last handful of tears that leaked out of the corners of her eyes. Her uncle squeezed her shoulders, rocking her against him.

 

“You do what you want, Ada. I’m proud of you either way.”

 

She still hadn’t made a decision. Instead, Ada had tossed and turned all night, yet she wasn’t even sleepy right now. The anxiety of making the right or wrong decision weighed too heavily on her mind. Ada half-wrote notes to her instructor’s lecture, looking busy enough that she wouldn’t be called on, and breathed deeply. If only she had more time to decide. If only she could calm down a little. There was too much pressure.

 

Ada’s stomach rolled, and she shot her hand up in the air and asked to be excused to use the restroom. Her instructor barely nodded his assent, and she was on her feet. The pit in her stomach eased with every step as she weaved her way through the lecture hall. She’d step out of the classroom, maybe go to the courtyard for fresh air instead of the restroom; in no time, she’d feel better.

 

As soon as the door shut behind her, Ada felt two sets of arms hook around her elbows, nearly lifting her off the ground. Two hands covered her mouth before the involuntary shriek came out, and her captors leaned forward into her line of vision.

 

“Good thing you showed up to class today, Vessalius,” Elliot said, his eyes narrowed.

 

“Ditching your fellow jazz trio members isn’t how the industry works, just so you know,” Leo added with a smile that, for once, met the glittering eyes behind his huge glasses. His hand was directly against her skin, Elliot’s folded on top of it, and Leo bopped her nose lightly with his fingertips before retracting his hand.

 

“Wh-what are you…?” she managed before the two dragged her off down the hallway.

 

“We’re doing what trios do,” Elliot said.

 

“We’re talking out our problems,” Leo added. Ada didn’t miss their smarmy grins as they parroted her advice back to her, but the urge to cry and hug them still overwhelmed her.

 

They ended up in their usual music room. A student Ada didn’t know sat at the piano, and the scowl that came to his face as soon as they entered the room dimmed when he saw Elliot. His reputation as a pianist must have preceded him, Ada though, pride blooming in her chest.

 

“We can wait,” Leo said. “The period isn’t over yet.”

 

The three of them stood in the corner while the other student shuffled around his sheet music and started playing something classical, though Ada wasn’t well-versed enough to place the composer. He played decently, and when the bell rang, Ada leaned over to Elliot and whispered, “Praise him.”

 

Elliot raised his eyebrows at her, but when the student passed them on the way to the door, he said, “The Mozart piece was very good.” It was stiff delivery, but the student lit up and thanked him anyway.

 

Once he was out of earshot, Leo added, “Even if it is a standard piece for beginners.”

 

Ada slapped his arm. “That’s not nice! You could tell he wanted to play something good with Elliot listening.”

 

“Really?” Elliot was already at the piano, laying out his own sheet music. He paused, then turned around on the bench and nodded to Ada. “You ready?”

 

“As I’ll ever be,” she said. Her heart was still pounding and her hands were clammy, but Uncle Oscar had been right. Elliot and Leo were still here to support her.

 

Leo passed by her to sit beside Elliot at the piano bench, crossing his legs to accommodate Elliot, who sat with his legs apart, arms crossed. They both stared at her.

 

Well. They were new to the support thing, she supposed. “Wh-what?”

 

“This is what you have to get used to,” Elliot said.

 

“Or, rather, this is what’s bothering you. Right?” Leo added. “You’re nervous about performing in front of people. The talent agent, in particular.” Ada flushed; so that hadn’t escaped their notice. “You need us less to play piano for you and more to help you get used to performing in front of other people.”

 

“We’ll pretend to be your harshest critics,” Elliot said. “ _Pretend,_ okay? Don’t let it trip you up if there are a couple of jerks in the audience. You don’t want to mess up just because customers are in a lousy mood. They might have been subjected to bad amateurs, so it’s not necessarily you bugging them.”

 

“He means he doesn’t want you to worry,” Leo translated, elbowing Elliot, who pulled his legs together to make more room for Leo on the bench.

 

Elliot’s face flushed. “W-we only have today to practice. The open mic is tonight. Are we going to do this or not?” Leo smiled.

 

Ada took a deep breath and held it for a second. Exhaling in a quick puff, she said, “Wait.”

 

They both looked at her, their expressions revealing nothing. The fact that neither of them said, “Okay,” or asked why might have irritated Ada on any other day, but she was starting to get used to their odd, Elliot-and-Leo behavior. Ada perched on Leo’s chair beside the piano, and the boys turned to face her on the bench. In perfect sync, Elliot leaned back a little, and Leo leaned forward so they could both see her.

 

“I’m mostly nervous about Vincent,” she said, being careful not to fall into Elliot’s pattern of calling him ‘Vince.’ The nickname had stuck in her head, but it felt much too familiar for her use. “From the stage, I think…the lights might blind me too much for me to see any patrons. I’ll hear if they boo or something, but at least I won’t see them. I can trick myself a little bit that way.”

 

“Not a bad idea,” Leo said.

 

“It’s scarier knowing that people are out there, though,” she continued. “I know that Uncle Oscar, Oz, and Gil will be there, which is good, but I also know that a talent agent is watching, and that puts more pressure on it. Besides, I’ve…I’ve met Vincent a few times, and I’m not sure that I made the best impression.”

 

“Really? Why do you say that?” Elliot frowned.

 

“Gil and Elliot are the only people Vince openly likes,” Leo said. “If he’s not being overtly hostile towards you, you’re probably okay.”

 

“Overtly hostile?” Ada repeated. She couldn’t image Vincent even raising his voice. He seemed to have such a gentle nature. Though, as a talent agent, he must have had the potential to be quite cutthroat. A new spark of fear struck her.

 

“Don’t listen to him, you’re freaking yourself out over nothing,” Elliot said. He grunted and drummed his fingers against his upper arm. “Vince is really professional at what he does. If he hears an objectively good performance, he acknowledges it. He won’t let anything sway his opinion.”

 

“Except Gil’s opinion,” Leo said, “which actually works in your favor.”

 

“Leo, stop talking,” Elliot said. Leo gave him a good kick in the leg, which impressed Ada since they were still sitting down.

 

“You really think it’ll be okay?” Ada asked.

 

“Actually, yes,” Leo said. Elliot agreed, rubbing his calf.

 

“Now, your plan is to go Billie Holiday, right?” She nodded. “What were you thinking for music?”

 

“I thought you—” Ada stopped. Elliot had told her only the day before that he wouldn’t perform at his family’s club for ethical reasons. “Oh. Will I be performing with the house band?” That was a whole new bundle of worries. She’d seen the Baskervilles that night, and how impossibly cool and talented they were. Being upstaged wasn’t a matter of _if_ but _when_.

 

“You could,” Elliot said, leaning back a little further. “Or…”

 

“No,” Leo said.

 

“You said you weren’t a background player.”

 

“I also recall saying something to the effect of never wanting to play for Nightray’s.”

 

“Which—” Elliot swallowed whatever he was about to say, and Ada got the distinct sense that they had talked out their problem further without her. Leo was definitely holding back the day before, so it would be great if he had opened up to Elliot. Not that it bothered her to be excluded from this; it was actually nice to see them working out their problems without her involvement. They were a little exhausting. “Well, if we’re going to open our own club, we need a draw. People will come to see Ada…and they’ll come to see you.”

 

Ada knew it. “You’re going to have me perform with the Baskerville Prodigy?” Her nerves pitched her voice higher than ever.

 

“Don’t call me that,” Leo snapped. Elliot bumped his shoulder against his, and Leo huffed a few times before his posture relaxed.

 

“Well…it’s just, won’t that overshadow me even more than the house band? Not that I’m making it all about me. Um, but...”

 

“It’s not for my family,” Elliot said quietly, his back turned to Ada. She could barely see Leo’s mess of hair over his shoulder from this angle. “It’s just…a chance for you to show what you can do.”

 

“Don’t you have to be eighteen to perform, though?” Ada asked. She tried to keep her voice gentle, not wanting the boys to think she wanted Leo out.

 

Elliot and Leo shared an incredulous expression when they looked back at her.

 

“We don’t really care,” Leo said. Elliot shrugged.

 

“Oh.” There wasn’t anything more for Ada to say. “Well, then. So, it’ll be you and me, Leo?”

 

“It should be the three of us.” Leo’s voice soured. “It will be when we’re a trio.”

 

“You two agreed to being a trio awfully quickly,” Ada noted with a little smile.

 

“Billie Holiday with two pianos would sound better,” Leo continued as if Ada hadn’t spoken.

 

“Well, it’ll have to settle for one this time around.” Elliot jerked his chin at Ada. “All right, you start practicing. We’ve spent enough time chatting.”

 

“You don’t even have to pretend to be an angry customer,” Ada said, clapping her hands together. Leo snorted with laughter. “Leo, do you want to play?”

 

“Later,” he said, waving his hand. “First let’s focus on your stage presence. Then Elliot can figure out how we’re going to smuggle me past my family and get me on stage to play.”

 

Elliot uncrossed his arms, a smug look on his face. “I’ve already thought of that.”

 

“No,” Leo said.

 

“I haven’t told you what it—”

 

“No. I know that tone of voice. Definitely, absolutely no.”


	16. Chapter 16

The scissors shook in Gil’s hand. Of all the requests Elliot had ever made of him, this was by far the strangest one. Not to mention the glare he was uncovering snip by snip.

 

Still, he shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d been telling Oz for years how alike he and Elliot were. Last week he was smuggling Ada into the club, and now Leo. Or, what was it he was calling himself? Glen? Some stage name so he could make it past the rest of the Baskervilles without being spotted. Which Gil thought was highly unlikely, considering how perceptive the whole bunch of them were.

 

Elliot’s suggestion for getting Leo in had been straightforward and illegal: under Gil’s coat. Leo at least had the sense to point out how ridiculous this plan was, though losing his glasses and trimming his mane appeared to be an even less pleasant solution for him. Another snip, and a full bluish-blackish-purple eye was boring into Gil’s face. He felt himself sweating.

 

“This was a great idea,” Elliot said, leaning over Gil’s shoulder to admire his handiwork. “You really have nice eyes, you know?”

 

“You’ve said so before.” The reply came through gritted teeth. “Nice, freaky eyes.”

 

“They’re not _freaky_. They’re unique!” Snip. Glare. “Special?” Snip. Glare. “S-striking?”

 

“Shut up, Elliot.”

 

“Actually, I can see the resemblance between you and Oswald more now,” Gil said. He wished he had thought of a better hiding place for his new box of cigarettes, remembering with pain the sight of Oz grinning as he flushed them down the toilet. “People might think you’re him.”

 

“Yes, just mysteriously shrunken by about a foot.” Snip. Oh, dear, Leo really wasn’t happy about this. Still, he sat obediently in the seat when Elliot praised him. Gil thought for a delirious moment that they were a bit alike.

 

“So, Leo’s going to play piano, and Ada’s going to sing? What about you, Elliot?” Gil asked.

 

“I’m just going to watch for tonight,” Elliot said, straightening and stepping back so Gil could move to the next section of unruly hair. “I’ll sit with you and Vince.”

 

Gil smiled, unable to help it. His younger brothers were growing up, and yet they were still so like they were as children. “That will be nice. It’s been a while since we’ve been together.”

 

“A while,” Elliot repeated sharply, and Gil covered his chuckle with a cough.

 

“Well, I’m looking forward to tonight. Oz is really excited.” Gil finished trimming Leo’s bangs, earning the full power of his glare, and snipped a few loose pieces on either side of his face. “I hope Ada is, too.”

 

“She’s a basket case,” Elliot said, and Leo smiled for the first time since Gil had seen him. Or maybe he had smiled before and his hair and glasses had hidden it. “But she’ll be fine.”

 

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Gil pulled away the towel he’d wrapped around Leo’s shoulders and offered him a hand mirror to inspect his new haircut. He did so with his lips pressed together in a thin line. “I’m glad you three are getting along. After tonight, do you think you’ll all hang out and do things together?”

 

“Oh, yes,” Leo said. Gil reached into his pocket for a cigarette he no longer had. “We’re going to start our own jazz club and put Nightray’s out of business.”

 

“That’s nice,” Gil said.

 


	17. Chapter 17

Amateur Night must have been a big deal at Nightray’s, because the place was packed. Everywhere Oz looked, tables were full, drinks were being toasted, and customers were inching closer to the stage.

 

Having a Nightray connection or three was especially convenient tonight. Vince had a table in the back set aside for himself and his brothers, and the staff had produced two additional chairs from the back for Oz and Uncle Oscar. Oz’s father was nowhere in sight, and Oz wondered belatedly if his father even knew where they were right now. Probably not. The smoky setting of a nightclub was hardly Xai Vessalius’s idea of class.

 

Oz liked it.

 

Watching Vince evaluate the performers who volunteered was just as interesting. He had a tiny notebook and made little scratches and symbols as people performed, most by the third or fourth note. Oz asked him about them, and Gil also turned his attention to Vince for the answer.

 

“I just make note of whether someone has potential or not,” he answered, clearly reveling in his older brother’s attention. “Some people have a spark but aren’t quite there yet. Others have the look but no talent. Some agents sign those types anyway, but I can’t bring myself to do it.”

 

It sounded like a line to Oz, and yet it didn’t. All part of the business, he supposed, to be a tricky talker. He felt like he should keep an eye on Vince for some reason.

 

Elliot hadn’t drawn much attention, despite obviously being a teen. “I come down here sometimes,” he answered stiffly when Oz asked. “The regulars know I’m a Nightray.”

 

“Ah, is that why you can’t play here?” Uncle Oscar asked. Elliot’s reply was drowned out by the drunken warbling of another performer at the mic. “I do envy you, though. I’d love to own a club of my own.”

 

Elliot started at that. “Did Ada talk to you?”

 

“No, no, this dream goes back well before Ada,” Uncle Oscar laughed. He put his hands up and moved them away from one another in an arch. Oz could practically see the marquee in his uncle’s imagination. “ _Rolling Thunder_. Isn’t that a good name for a club?”

 

“It is,” Elliot said, and Oz couldn’t tell if he were being polite or not. His eyes were elsewhere. “Gil.”

 

Gil jumped up and skirted around the bar towards the staircase. A moment later, Oz watched him not-nonchalantly edge along the wall towards the backstage entrance. Leo trotted along in his shadow. Oz couldn’t hide his grin; these teenagers had moxie.

 

“I’m gonna go backstage and wish Ada good luck,” he said, pushing his seat back. Uncle Oscar followed suit, leaving his beer on the table.

 

“You’re going to draw attention to Leo,” Elliot said, pushing himself up from his seat with both hands on the table. Vince tugged him back down.

 

“Elliot has a point,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Maybe one at a time?”

 

Uncle Oscar sat back down and picked up his beer again. “You go ahead, Oz. I’ll have a chance to wish her luck before an even bigger audience next time.” He tipped his beer in Vince’s direction and waggled his eyebrows. Vince gave him an indulgent laugh. “You give my darling niece a kiss for me, won’t you?”

 

“You got it, Uncle. How about you, Elliot? Want me to give Leo a kiss for you?”

 

Vince tugged Elliot back down into his seat again. “I wouldn’t if I were you, Oz. The newest Baskerville performer does seem a bit violent. Lovely, but violent.”

 

“Don’t say weird things like that,” Elliot said, squinting at his brother, and Oz chuckled on his way over to where Gil was shielding Leo at the backstage entrance.

 

“Oz.” Gil was sweating bullets. He really was a good guy, Oz thought, and he’d had a heck of a week. Maybe he’d give Gil a break after all this was over. “You want to see Ada?”

 

“If it’s all right.”

 

Gil didn’t have any complaints, of course, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. Oz clapped a hand on his shoulder, and they followed Leo backstage.

 

This kid was like a shadow. Oz swore he melted into the instrument cases and dressing room curtains the second he was backstage. The rest of the Baskervilles were milling around at the opposite end of the backstage area, watching performers through the curtains.

 

“Ooh,” the one woman among them—Lottie, Oz thought Gil had said her name was—giggled. “Put a fork in this guy, he’s do-o-ne.” The tallest man standing near her chortled, while a stone-faced man beside him sighed. Oz had to do a double take; Gil hadn’t been kidding when he said there was a family resemblance. In ten years, Leo could pass for this guy’s twin.

 

Ada and a few other performers stood on the opposite side of the room, most looking sick with fear at the Baskervilles’ laughter. The closer he got to her, the paler Oz could see Ada’s face was.

 

Leo materialized beside her just before Oz and Gil arrived. “Relax. They’re always like this, but they won’t say a word while we’re on stage.”

 

“Elliot may have been counting on that,” Gil whispered to Oz, who felt a pang of guilt for the grief he’d given Elliot earlier. As soon as he got on stage, Leo would be recognized, that was for sure. So long as he didn’t take attention away from Ada, Oz was fine with it.

 

“There’s my favorite jazz star!” Oz said, opening his arms wide. Ada’s embrace was shaky, but she did look relieved to see him. “You’re going to kill it out there.”

 

“Good luck,” Gil added, “though I know you’ll be great.”

 

The next act was up. The Baskervilles parted to let a middle-aged woman in a too-tight flapper dress pass, though they still crowded the stage entrance. Leo’s eyes shot to Oz.

 

“Yeah, you guys will be awesome.” Oz gave Leo a curt nod and pulled Gil back by the elbow. “We’ll see you out there.”

 

He kissed Ada’s forehead and whispered, “From Uncle,” in her ear. When he drew back, she was smiling. Then he steered Gil towards the Baskervilles.

 

“Oh, wow,” he said, a little louder than necessary. “It really is them!”

 

They all turned to him in confusion, Gil included, as Oz bounced up to Lottie.

 

“You’re even more of a knockout up close,” he said, hoping that his grin held up its usual charm.

 

“Who are you, and how did you get back here?” Lottie asked, though when Gil followed Oz’s lead, she rolled her eyes. “Gil, stop bringing charity cases back here, would you?”

 

“This is my friend, Oz,” Gil said. “He wanted to meet the house band.”

 

“Huge fan,” Oz said, grabbing her hand to shake it. He moved on to the stoic and the big guy next, pumping their arms up and down with what he assumed was fanatic adoration. “Really, I’m kind of bummed you’re not playing tonight.”

 

“We’ll be back after the open mic is over,” the big guy said. Past the curtains, Oz could hear tepid applause. “There aren’t many acts left, I don’t think…”

 

He started to look over at the other performers when Oz said, “Saaaay! Do you think there’s any big talent out there that’ll knock the place’s socks off?”

 

“Not yet, but hopefully,” the stoic said, his voice as unfeeling as his face. Ada and Leo skirted behind the Baskervilles and onto the stage.

 

“Well, get ready, ‘cos my sister is about to blow you away!” Oz said, and, leaving the bewildered Baskervilles behind, he grabbed Gil’s arm and bolted for the door back out into the club.


	18. Chapter 18

Ada barely heard the emcee—one of the Baskervilles she’d seen play the other night—as he announced _Ada and Glen_ onto the stage. She floated to the microphone, her heart pounding, and saw Leo take his seat at the piano beside her. He sat with a flourish, as if the piano were his own, and a murmur ran through the crowd. “Oswald?” Ada thought she heard someone in the front ask.

 

There was no sound, aside from a tiny bit of microphone feedback. As she’d thought, Ada couldn’t see anyone’s face out in the club. The spotlight was on her. She took a slow breath. Who was out there, after all? Her family, her friends, Vince.

 

Ada exhaled.

 

Behind her, Leo started up the intro, his fingers gliding across the keys. Elliot hadn’t been lying; as much as Leo hated the moniker, he was the Baskerville Prodigy. After Ada sang a few times to Elliot and Leo’s grouchy faces and passed their test, Leo had played for her without looking at the sheet music once. His performance was every bit as good as Elliot’s, no question.

 

She waited for her cue and squared her shoulders to hit her first note.

 

“I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places,” she sang, a vision of Uncle Oscar singing for her and Oz fleeting through her mind. “That this heart of mine embraces all day through. In that small café, the park across the way, the children’s carousel, the chestnut tree, the wishing well…”

 

The lyrics came as easily as if she’d been singing them her whole life, and she had. Leo didn’t miss a beat behind her, the piano keys twinkling gracefully. _Like thunder,_ she kept thinking. _Deep and powerful._

She pulled her voice from her stomach and crooned every syllable the way she had since she was small. Her eyes closed, and she felt the music every bit as much as she heard it. The club felt a million miles away. All she could imagine was a table with her loved ones looking up and supporting her. She imagined them in the front row—Uncle Oscar’s and Oz’s matching impish grins, Gil’s nerves calming into his sweet smile, Elliot’s satisfied smirk, and maybe. Just maybe. She could make a good impression on Vince.

 

“I’ll be looking at the moon,” she sang, Leo behind her slowing the music for the finale, “but I’ll be seeing you.”

 

In place of the closing chord Elliot had played, Leo added a few seconds of decorative piano, swooping up and down the keys like a regular Bill Evans. Ada couldn’t help her little giggle when she opened her eyes and looked over. Anyone could tell Leo was enjoying himself. The way he was playing was different from even that afternoon. She wondered what it would be like when they were a trio, her, Leo, and Elliot. Two piano prodigies, and her, playing jazz and singing the blues. Her heart warmed with the thought.

 

Leo hit his final note and held it. Ada felt herself breathe again, and turned to smile at the audience. It was over. Whether she’d killed it or not, whatever happened, this experience was unforgettable. She’d be telling her kids and her grandkids about this night forever. Leo got up to stand beside her for a quick bow, and she curtsied. Was that was they did in clubs? Was that what the other amateur night performers had done? Ada didn’t even know. The silence all around her rang in her ears.

 

A second later, the entire club burst into applause.


	19. Chapter 19

Nightray’s was on its feet.

 

Amateur Night could be painful, especially the later it got, the more alcohol imbibed. To find this gem of an act on stage…one day, people would surely be saying, “It was here. This is the very club where I first saw Ada Vessalius.”

 

Vince included himself in that prediction.

 

First meeting her was like any other hopeless case. He thought her another silly girl going through her Roaring Twenties phase. Enamored with flappers but blank-faced when asked who Cab Calloway or Peggy Lee was. Gil had said otherwise, and, maybe even more to Vince’s surprise, so had Elliot. And here she was, this Ada Vessalius, dragging the Baskerville Prodigy out of his shell and doing the best Billie Holiday cover he’d ever heard.

 

This girl was going somewhere, Vince knew. Not only because she could carry a note or because she could carry herself on stage, but because the second the song was over and the next poor performer had to follow this act, Vince was going to be waiting backstage himself. He wasn’t letting anyone else swoop in on this girl; she was all his.


End file.
